A Mari Usque Ad Mare
by Leviticus Wilkes
Summary: Artemis Fowl and Deryn Sharp trapped between dimensions! Butler and Volger arguing with each other! Opal Koboi and ... Opal Koboi? A continuation of Ezqueza's Levi Af. T for fowl haha  foreign language.
1. Chapter 1

**A Mari Usque Ad Mare**

**A few notes before the fanfiction really begins: **

**This is really my second fanfiction since a one-shot alternate ending for S. E. Hinton's book "The Outsiders".**

**I am actually writing this as a continuation of the Artemis fowl/Leviathan crossover fan-fiction, Leif af, by Ezqueza. Do to almost obscenely long waits between chapters (5 months!) I believe that something should be done to at least try to leave the story with closure. As such I really don't own even the story proper (much less the characters, with all dues to Scott Westerfeld and Eion Colfer) so I would strongly suggest hitting up Ezqueza's page on and leaving a review for her work.**

**I am doing this as a project for creative writing so please leave any and all comments in your reviews, even if it is only to tell me how much a plagiarizing scum bag I am. So without further ado the tale of Mud men and Darwinists, fairies and Clankers.**

**To keep in line with fanfiction site (God bless their little hearts) I will upload the first two chapters as one. **

**Again I do not take responsibility for the first two chapters. They belong to Ezqueza. Hit her up please. **

**Chapter 1**

_We are all adrift in the sea of reality._

_-Anonymous_

_Many have tried to describe Artemis Fowl, many have failed. He has baffled even the most intelligent child psychologists around the world. He is a genius, like none other than the world has ever been seen. Not only has Artemis succeeded in being the smartest boy of his generation, he has been the first to reach 'the People' (the fairy community) in years, able to put insane criminal mastermind, Opal Koboi, behind bars, saved a fairy city Atlantis from destruction, and stopped global warming. All before his sixteenth birthday. It is true that there have been some drawbacks; he developed a case of 'Atlantis Complex' through his affairs in magic. The Atlantis Complex gives the boy a sense of paranoia, extreme OCD, and a second personality. He is currently in Haven city and is subject to treatment. His projects are still in the works, but under temporary supervision._

Holly Short waited inside the Cumulus house, not knowing who would come to greet her in the waiting room. If this was going to be a good day, Artemis Fowl would exit through those doors and the two would be on their way. If this were going to be a bad day however, Orion Fowl would leap from the door and ask to be taken on an adventure. Holly had been trying to keep up with Artemis's treatments of shock therapy over the past year, but he had been shocked so many times that she lost count and could not predict just who she was going to the Haven City Museum with.

Artemis had been a good patient to the doctor, and his sixteenth birthday was coming up, so Holly, as the closest friend in Haven city with a day off, decided to take him to see some culture. Not to say Artemis already knew everything he needed to know through stealing and translating the book and hacking Foaly's database. Regardless, the boy needed some time off the madhouse and the museum seemed to be the most interesting thing he could see without stirring up too much trouble. With Artemis, it was a day off. With Orion, it was a quest. Holly Short's patience all depended on who came through those doors.

A nurse looked up from her desk.

"Mr. Fowl will be with you now." She said blankly.

With an intake of breath, Holly stood to accept her fate. Artemis- or Orion- she could not tell yet- met her in the waiting room.

"Good to see you Holly," he said, extending his hand. Holly, she thought, not Princess.

"Nice to see you too….mud boy," She said, not willing to make her guess yet.

"Artemis, its Artemis. I do not know if I could stand missing a chance to learn about the people, especially if Orion was there to not appreciate it in my absence."

Holly sighed with relief. No Orion. That was good.

"Though I think we should get going, it is almost 3:50, and ten more minutes after that will be…"

"Four." Holly Finished.

Artemis Flinched.

Holly sighed. Though Artemis was a million times more practical than Orion, the number thing was a major drawback. Artemis had already accepted that four was a part of life, but he still avoided it whenever possible. To relieve the situation of further awkward conversation, Holly began in the direction of the exit.

"It's a walk, but you'll survive it," she said.

"What is a fairy museum like, out of interest?" Artemis asked as he followed her out the door.

"I guess the same as a mud man museum, only a bit more content." Holly said.

"I feel like a child again, five years old and heading to an exhibit. Must I write an essay about it later?" Artemis joked, his humor dry as ever.

"Only you would write an essay at five years old," said Holly, "And I thought you frowned upon leaving your room."

"I did," Artemis said, "But I had little say in such things at five."

Holly was about to comment, when a swarm of reporters crowded around them, sticking their microphones in their faces. While a mud man being treated in Haven city was worth an article in the papers, Artemis Fowl being treated in Haven city was more news than a reporter could cover in a year. The Cumulus House security had the crowd shoved away, but the chance of walking through Haven city as two celebrities was dwindling. Luckily, there was a car waiting for them. In the miniature driver's seat was Juliet; hair dyed green and skin dyed purple. Her elongated nails tapped the steering wheel.

"I thought you would need me Arty." She said, "Good to see you Holly."

Recently Juliet had taken Butler's place as Artemis's bodyguard. Haven was too small for Butler, and the Fowls needed him back on the surface. Reluctantly Butler agreed to leave his charge until Artemis recovered.

"And only for that long," he had said, "God knows he doesn't need time to get into trouble."

Juliet said she was Artemis's bodyguard, but one cannot keep her from the ring. She became Haven's own 'Mud Princess' instead of the 'Jade Princess', a name she actually preferred. Along with the joy of changing her colors every five minutes.

Holly took Artemis's hand, for he had made no movements toward the waiting car, but he snatched it away.

"What do all these people want?" He stammered. The paranoia was kicking in, "Why do they want me? What do I have that they want?"

Artemis began tap his side. He muttered the 5 multiples under his breath.

"5 10 15 20 25…"

Juliet saw the rising problem and helped Holly shove the boy into the backseat.

"Drive" Holly said, and then to Artemis, "They're gone."

"Right," said the boy, "It seems my medication failed me for a moment there, I will have to inform the doctor when we get back."

"Are you sure you are up to it?" Holly asked, worried for her friend.

"Of course I am up to it, wouldn't miss it for the world." Artemis smiled something he said he had been mentally practicing with Orion.

Holly did not exactly know what it was like to be under shock treatment every day, but she assumed Artemis would not give up his break from it easily. When the car pulled up to the museum, Juliet was quick to boot them out.

Holly shoved (or shoved the most she could an almost fully grown mud man) Artemis onto the steps before he was noticed.

Inside was a world of holograms, fossils, artifacts, and wax humans. He pointed to a knight with a bloody mace.

"I didn't make it," Holly said defensively.

Holly lead Artemis to the new exhibit, the one he would be most interested in, the reason for this trip.

"The 'what we still don't know' exhibit," Artemis read, "All the mysteries that still baffle the people?"

"Yes, thought you might enjoy it." Holly said, "Notice it is a very small exhibit."

Artemis did not answer, deciding instead to look at the different artifacts and descriptions under little glass domes. In his excited scan of the room, he noticed in the center of the room a tattered piece of paper that did not look to hold any fantastic mysteries. Holly came up beside him.

"The only page that was not copied into the book. No one can read it, because it was written in a language that hasn't been found anywhere else on the planet."

Artemis's hand twitched.

"Go ahead," Holly continued, "Take a picture; you'll need something to do in your spare time."

Artemis smiled again, his normal smile that reflected his old self.

"Perhaps I will," Artemis said.

D'Arvit it was good to have a project.

**Chapter 1.5**

Deryn placed the letter on Alek's pillow. She knew this would be a daft idea, if anyone read that letter she was finished, but Alek had to know. It was the only way she could live with herself. Even dafter would be to just leave it out for the world to see. Then again it just was a bit of crumpled paper after all, hell, Alek might not even look twice at it! Perhaps she should make up an excuse to wait here until he got back from being interviewed by the captain, so she could leave just as he was reading it. If anyone who didn't need to see it were to come along, she could just snatch it up and say it was a drawing.

You barking coward might as well tell him then! Deryn thought to herself, though she knew that the words would never come out verbally. Nervously she backed away from the bedroom, heart on fire. She could not wait to just get out of here and let fate have its way with the barking letter. She could deny it, maybe, probably not.

Her back was to his room as she walked away. She hoped to whatever cruel angel watched over her that things wouldn't go pear shaped. Back to work. The original intention for coming all the way over to Alek's end of the ship was to be on her way to the captain's quarters. A message lizard had come to her while she was writing her letter and demanded her presence at once. Of course, she was out of her barking mind with nerves. Some day she would think back to her time aboard the Leviathan and realize most of her time on the ship was spent hiding and having heart attacks when her captain spoke to her. Every time she passed an officer she expected him to guess something or accuse her of treason. It was the life of a lair, always on your guard to protect your inventions. But one falsehood was out of the way. Perhaps once Alek knew, she wouldn't feel like such a traitor anymore. It was bad enough she lied to her ship about both her sex and Alek's family, but she was keeping secrets from Alek as well. Without her fiction, she was no one's ally, and could never be trusted as one.

A burden lifted off of her chest when the captain welcomed her with a smile along with Mr. Rigby. She noticed that if neither Dr. Barlow or the Clankers had anything to do with her visit to the captain, she had no fear of seeing him. It made her feel a bit better about lying to everyone she knew and loved on this ship.

"Ah, Mr. Sharp, our best midshipman when it comes to flying." Said the captain.

Inside her thoughts, Deryn snorted. She was the only midshipman who was good at flying. Newkirk was dead useless in the air.

"Mr. Sharp, due to the new engines we recently acquired we been able to reach new altitudes with the ship and have noticed odd weather patterns." The captain continued" "It is strange, because on the ground weather experts tell us that there is nothing out of the ordinary. We need a good flyer to go up in a Huxley and record the patterns for science."

Deryn nodded. This was a good mission. No sneaking around on other people's land, no spying on friends, just going up in the air in the name of science. Many other boys might have wanted a dangerous mission, but Deryn Sharp has had enough of risking her life trying to figure out the balance in treason and helping a poor sod get by.

Mr. Rigby strapped all sorts of weather detecting doo-dads to her uniform. So many that one unsteady shift of weight would send her to the floor. How was she meant to fly in this?

The Huxley managed to take her weight anyway, though when she was strapped in she could feel the metal of the weather detectors digging into her skin from all sides. Slowly, she was hoisted into the air. The higher she went, the smaller the Leviathan was.

"Blisters, how high exactly are these weather patterns?" She swore to herself.

Looking up, she saw the same blue sky. No big clouds, really, just a couple of lazy drifting puffs of white. How could the experts tell the difference between this sky and any other? The monitors were normal, and things had only a few moments to get interesting before the rope ran out and they had to reel her back in. Even though she had not wanted a whole fighting mission, this could get a bit more exciting. They could of coarse have sent up Newkirk after all. From the way things looked no real piloting experience was needed. She felt a message lizard climb onto her shoulder.

"Mr. Sharp, you are almost at the altitude where we have lost our weather balloons. Since there is little oxygen up there, you will have to put on your air mask," It said, Deryn didn't know of any air mask. As if it could read her mind the lizard continued, "The mask is attached to the yellow tank on your back. Pull it to your mouth and flick the switch, don't wait for the air to get thin. I can promise you that it will happen in a moment. Send the lizard down if there are any problems, if not, sit tight and try not to freeze."

Deryn obeyed, not wanting to find out what it felt like to be gasping for air. She pulled the mask to her face and flicked the switch. The air tasted odd, but she had swum miles with a squid in her mouth and anything was better than that. Once again she looked ahead. Weather balloons were lost here? They hadn't told her about that. She supposed they had simply popped and dropped down to the ship.

The bigger concern was the painful pang in her head as her ears popped. She had read about this sensation. As great as flying was, men were born for the ground, and up in these heights one would get a sucking feeling in their head, like when you dive too deep in an ocean. This was far worse than any dive though. It felt like her brain was being forced out of her ears while simultaneously doing summersaults to struggle against a throbbing migraine. She remembered the trick Jaspert had taught her during swimming lessons and let a breath loose while holding her nose and keeping her mouth shut. She felt like something reversed in her head and the pain stopped. Though a bit lightheaded, she rose further into the sky.

Curiosity overcame her and she stared back down at the leviathan. Barking spiders it was far away. How long had she been up here? How long was the rope? The beastie nestled into her neck for warmth. Apparently the thin air and high altitude did not bother it.

"Sorry beastie," she said, reaching up to tickle its chin, "You're not getting much excitement today."

Once she had said it she marveled at how odd her voice sounded through the mask. Almost like a Clanker megaphone. Come to think of it, all of these gadgets looked very Clanker. Thought it pained her to admit it, when it came to recording data, the Darwinists had used mostly Clanker machines. She would have to mention that to Alek, a swelled head would do him a bit of good. Pride is the best bandage, or at least, the one that people use the most. He might need a lot of bandages when Volger was through lecturing him about coming back aboard the Leviathan.

"Barking Spiders!" She swore.

She had almost forgotten! The letter was still in his room. Another glance down made it feel so far away, so irreversible if she changed her mind and ran to retrieve it. Who knows when he had gotten back to his room and seen it? Maybe an Officer had seen it too. At any moment she could be cranked down as Deryn, instead of Midshipman Dylan Sharp. Suddenly every twitch of the cable made her nervous. Her nasty fate could be waiting below her. The message lizard, evidently because of the increasing cold, crawled into her jacket. If she sent it down now she could get back in time. But then she would have to make up an excuse. Her secret was important, a tragedy if discovered, but Deryn could not help but wonder. Was being revealed worse than a broken monitor? Perhaps she could say something fell loose when a particularly strong breeze hit. There would be punishment for losing an expensive piece of equipment, but no punishment was worse than losing the Leviathan. Then again, some sod probably was watching her closely, and with the Clanker spyglasses on board, them being all well-made and such, someone would definitely see her drop whatever she could wriggle loose. Another option was spooking her Huxley, but that was out of the question. Deryn Sharp was much too proud to pretend to panic at something so trivial. Plus, her experiences with spooking Huxley's had not always been so successful.

"I suppose I wait," She said to no one in particular, "I suppose I-" *CRACK*

In her panic of having her secret discovered, Deryn had not noticed that the needles on the monitors were going mad. One of them had broken and was leaking water.

"Well there's my excuse," Deryn said, and pulled the lizard from her shirt, "Captain, One of the monitors just broke," CRACK, CRACK, CRACK. More glass shattered from the pressure of frantic needles, "And there goes three more, I doubt the rest will last much longer…"

With a final shatter of each and every monitor, a powerful gust of wind swept Deryn higher into the air, startling her lizard and cutting off her message. The sky was suddenly dark around her. Winds battered her while blue electricity bounced around the clouds. She looked down to see that the chord was hanging limply, severed just a foot away from the rig. The message lizard darted back into her shirt, and began to replay her message.

"!" it babbled, "Oh come on Officer Miller, you've lost the game, give me my damned money!"

She tried to ignore the various snippets of conversation and previous messages as the wind took her higher. Through the confusion she wondered why on earth the Huxley wasn't spooked. It coiled and uncoiled its tentacles, as if wondering what it thought of its situation. Then the mad hysteria hit Deryn as well. She heard word after word coming out of her mouth that even she could not understand. The message lizard's voice combined with hers.

"You really are…"

"Souriou!"

"That would be a…"

"Bibbi lou lou"

"…is our plan and I hope you gentlemen…"

Deryn bit her tongue, though she felt as if the teeth were gone from her mouth. Her gums were numb. The wind blocked out the message lizard as Deryn started to see colors. Not just the spiraling lightning, but blasts of red and yellow, as if missiles were going off.

After rising, or falling, she could not tell, she saw massive ships. They were made of metal but had no familiar enemy markings. They shot at each other, some with cannons and others with green lights that singed the enemies. The ships seemed to be from different worlds, some weren't even airships at all, and she could have sworn she saw a sailboat shoot by. There were some things she recognized, aero planes, zeppelins, and even some birds, but other alien contraptions were trapped here too. Was that a massive stingray over there? The noise was the worst. The sounds of weapons firing and men shouting filled the air.

"I'm going mad!" she cried, "I've got no head left!"

A thought came to her. She may be knocked out because of the altitude and was dreaming this. A bullet shot past her, scraping her cheek. The thought was whipped away with the rest of her reason. In a desperate attempt not to lose herself, she began shouting again. Words she didn't know the meaning of, places that she had hated, numbers she would not count to, and names of people she had never met but liked the sound of them. Anything to keep her occupied so as not to fall into the confusion.

A jolt in the Huxley anchored her to reality, or as much reality that existed here. It had been shot, the friction of the escaping hydrogen lighting her aflame. The roar of the fire blotted out all other noises.

Suddenly she was back on the grass, watching her Da fly away with his balloon on fire. Desperately, she ran after him.

"DA! DA!" She screamed at the top of her lungs.

She ran, though she could not feel the ground, kicking the grass as if it were empty air. There she was, stumbling through the woods again, chasing the balloon. Watching it fade, waking up to a village boy gripping at her arm and calling to the rest of the search party, 'I've found her! I've found her!' She tried to bat him away, but her hands and elbows only met more air. Hot air. How on earth could she still breathe? She was on fire!

"Blisters Roger!" Deryn screamed, "Stop waving your daft hands and put out the barking fire!"

Time stopped and started, the boy's hands on her forming into the shape of her pilot rig and back. The fire crept down the chords, down his arms, down the chords again.

"This is hell!" Someone shouted, Deryn couldn't tell if it was her own voice or not, "I'm in barking hell!"

The fire had found her! It had tried to kill her once before in Da's balloon, but it had found her. Somewhere Deryn had always known this was how she was going to die. It was her Ma, tutting at her for running away from a bath. It was her Aunties, scolding her from running away from her corsets. It was Dylan, shaking his head sadly for her running away from herself. No different names or clothes could stop the fire now.

"I'm going to die!" she screeched, as if it made any difference.

As if those words had freed her, Deryn was suddenly sucked away from the madness. Suddenly, everything was calm. The fire still blazed, but it was slower. Obviously the dead Huxley had long released its hydrogen, and nothing but a steady burn flickered on the rig. Somehow the battering winds had kept the hydrogen from igniting, or at least that's what it seemed like. She wasn't in the air anymore. She was lying somewhere dry, looking up at a blue sky. A calm blue sky, like the same sky that had pulled her into the mess. It felt so long ago. So very long ago. Deryn felt old and tired, as if the ordeal had changed her into a frail old woman. She reached up a hand and removed her glove. It was a young hand, with all of her scrapes and calluses untouched. Maybe not old, but definitely tired. Too tired even to think. But even so, one thought plagued her mind.

"My letter," she croaked, "Alek…"

It did not matter if Deryn Sharp was alive or dead. It did not matter if she survived. Dylan was dead, and no haircuts, change of clothes, or cursing would persuade Deryn to bring him back.


	2. Chapter 2

**Chapter 2**

**A/N: This is where I take over. Sorry again Ezqueza. **

Artemis sat cross legged on his cot. The room's holoscreens, which covered three of the four walls, danced with the picture of the strange text, blown up. The laptop at Artemis feet ran through the text thirty times a minute with different decryption keys, mathematical codes that would have baffled any human (any human that didn't have Artemis's brain at least) and most centaurs to. But the most valuable computer in the room was turning over in Artemis's own head. And he had some help too. It was just too bad that the only help that could understand what was going on in his head was speaking of prophecies at the moment.

"We were meant to find this!" said Orion "We were destined to. Don't you see!"

"If we were meant to find the ridden then we would have found it when I kidnapped Holly. She would have had it. And it would have been deciphered" Countered Artemis. He and Orion had been going off at the parchment (or as they had begun calling it "the riddle") for most of six hours (Artemis didn't want to stop after four and Orion had goaded him to continue after five) and had made nearly no progress, save to find where the text actually seemed started. The meaning remained a mystery, so Artemis adjusted his mind onto other paths, hoping to find new ways to understand the text.

"Perhaps the Riddle is hieroglyphic, such as how the People write the Book" Provided Orion. Artemis smirked. According to Dr. Cumulus the easiest way to overcome the Atlantis Complex was to face his guilt. And because Orion was the literal personification of his guilt, the good doctor continued, the simplest way to do this was to converse with the being that had taken residence in his head. Even basic psychology majors knew that conversing with the voices in one's head was tantamount to madness, but apparently Atlantis Complex didn't work that way. It was the magic, Cumulus told fowl, which made the mind act this way. Artemis had been ready to pry the knowledge of the disease from the doctor's hands when he received full access to the medical databases (wait, did I say received, I meant hacked) and begin learning about the Complex.

"That would be a sound hypothesis, if the scripture was gnomish. The letters aren't relatable to Egyptian, Indian, Chinese, or Phoenician, let alone Gnomish. The structure is similarly mute on the underlying meaning." Artemis stared at one of the projections of the writing pondering the symbols. The answer had to be somewhere. Then suddenly an epiphany came to him. Or, rather, it came to Orion, but considering they shared the same body the idea was really Artemis's.

"What if the structure was integral to the wording? Then the positioning of the letters would correspond to the meaning and grammatical organization of each letter."

Artemis twitched involuntarily, staring at the picture with new eyes. "Yes, of course, any civilization that would have its own language would have differing structure. But grammar and meaning based on placement in the text, relative to placement…" The cogs in Artemis's mind began to speed up. Retyping the decryption code to accommodate the new variables he began to see patterns in the nonsense symbols.

"If we simply assign the positions new meaning… the words are backwards… it's a formula… almost a formula… not words, numbers, equations…" Artemis's and Orion's thoughts blurred and meshed, thoughts whispered, turning the strange language from a mystery, to near coherency, to almost a literal art. The symbols correlated to numbers, then equations, then to systems of equations. As Artemis began to input the equations in to the plotting programs of the equations, Orion babbled faster, racing ahead of the computer. "The designs don't translate to Euclidean geometry they overlap in to many positions to be a solid structure. If only there were more… Eureka!" Orion's proclamation caught Artemis's attention. "The equations aren't 3rd dimensional. They're 5th dimensional!" Artemis reprogramed his computer to print on five dimensions (another task that would have boggled the minds of most physicists and computer coders) and hit compute.

The computer screen portrayed a picture whose scale demanded a larger viewing screen. Moving the picture to the three holoscreens, Artemis ignored the door opening on his left. That could wait. The dimensional coordinates between one and three formed a rough portrayal of six continents. But the coordinates of the fourth and fifth dimensions reached high into the heavens, vanishing out of conventional computer power and squeezing down to land straight in the heart of the largest continent.

"Computer over-lay map of the world and remove equations showing dimensions one through three." As the computer crunched on the request Artemis turned around to face his visitor.

Juliet looked at the strange texts and odd computer programs and did not even endeavor to understand them, simply saying, "Hell Artemis, you may be the smartest person on the planet but your always more interesting when you have something to".

Juliet cracked a smile and Artemis graciously returned the compliment, "And you, Miss Butler, have always been ostensibly annoying when you didn't have a firearm with you. But your sense of timing is impeccable". Turning back to the computer screen, he continued "I need to leave soon and you and Butler will be coming with me". The computer had finished the program and now showed the world map. The strange 5th dimensional pipe now sat on the edge of Russia and Belarus, barely fifty miles in from the border. Coordinates flowed past on the screen and Artemis memorized them effortlessly, sorting them away for when they got the surface. "Tell Butler to prep the Lear. We're going topside."

…

Domovoi Butler had never been a spiritual man. If any higher power did exist then it would have made his job much easier from the beginning and prevented Artemis from kidnapping Holly in the first place. Protecting Artemis from himself though, was another matter. As Artemis had slowly descended into the grips of the mental disease, the youth's life had gone with him. And now that he was being treated for the Complex, he insisted on travelling to the surface and gallivanting off to the middle of the old USSR. That didn't mean that Butler wasn't going with him, it just meant that he rather disagreed with the timing. And if it was Orion who had brought him here instead of Artemis, he would return his charge back to Haven personally.

Butler waited on the tarmac at Minsk international airport, patiently contemplating his discomfort. The mass of his worries came from an oversight on his part. Having never been to Belarus prior to now, he had never set up a proper contact in the nation. All of his regular, Russian contacts had been unable to meet him and the contacts they had had been unwilling to trust Butler.

A ringing the Eurasian's pocket distracted him from his grim thoughts. Bringing the smartphone out the bodyguard read through the Gnomish text. "Meet at 53°54′60''N, 27°34′72''E". Returning the phone to its holster, Butler reminded himself that Artemis's new found fear of the number four was not shared by Orion. Perhaps this simply meant that Artemis was starting to return to normal. Or it could mean that Orion was in charge. As he strode off the ground into the airport Butler couldn't decide which version would be preferred. The mad one … or the product of one's madness.

…

As Artemis waited for Butler to arrive he decided to entertain himself a little. A little hacking here, some spam there, and suddenly the name of Belarus name turned to some profane Russian slur. Chuckling into his fist Artemis waited patiently as the internet traffic skyrocketed. Just before the government took official notice he reset the name to the original. Looking up at Holly he said "This may very well revolutionize the lives of thousands. Maybe a temporal gateway. A new form of interstellar travel perhaps. We are at the threshold of some many discoveries".

"Yeah, a big hole in the sky. Don't you mud men make enough of those every day". The two had been fairly silent towards one another on the way up. Holly was busy piloting, and Artemis was bringing Foaly and Qwan up to speed on his decoding of the text. Juliet, who hadn't been trying to keep up with Artemis's talk of quantum physics, turned her attention to Holly. "Any sight of big brother?"

"Not yet, but he should be here soon enough. And if he doesn't show up we can always pull some satellites out of orbit, triangulate his cell." Holly look out the window again and, speak of the devil, there he was. "We'll takeoff when Butler gets in. And Juliet."

"Yeah."

"You might what to reset your skin color". Juliet glanced down and saw that her skin was still green.

"Oh crap". Pulling out a device that looked deceptively like a stopwatch, she slapped on her wrist and dialed in normal. The skin around the device turn pitch black then returned to its normal shade of beige. "Don't let him in let" she cried, almost as though he was in danger of walking in on her.

Holly rolled her eyes and waited for Juliet's skin to mostly correct itself before opening the hatch. Butler ducked in and remained hunched in the compact shuttle.

"Holly, it's good to see you again" Butler lowered his hand to shake. Holly passed that up and hugged him around the knee. Her arms didn't even make it around.

"It's good to see you to Butler." Leaning away, Holly asked, "How's Angeline?"

"Doing well, considering how Artemis is doing." After learning that her son had been committed to an asylum, Angeline had promptly marched herself to Tara and refused to leave until they let her down to Haven. It had been a shock to see a human marching through the shuttle port apparently aware of every secret the fairies had concealed for thousands of years. She and Holly had become something akin to pen pals while Artemis had been treated. Angeline would ask Holly how her day had been, if she had talked to mulch, etc. Holly would ask how Myles and Beckett were, whether or not she had told Artemis senior about their son (he still thought Artemis was on an extended vacation). Turning to the boy of note Butler gave him a once over. Artemis certainly did look well enough with the computer he was talking to, but as a bodyguard Butler knew when things were wrong with his principle. Laying down on the too small for him bench, he asked "So how did you manage to sneak out of Haven."

"Oh, I just promised Cumulus a firsthand account of the manor siege. He was overjoyed to send me up for some air." Looking up from lab top he smiled at Butler momentarily. Butler decided to test that he was speaking with Artemis.

"Square root of 196" he tossed at Artemis.

"14" Artemis replied.

"Atomic weight of Cesium".

"132.905".

Butler glowered. "Artemis's favorite song."

"It's no game, part 2." Artemis looked up from the lab top again, raising his eyebrow. "I am Artemis, Butler. To have Orion pretend to be me at such a critical moment would be absurd."

Satisfied that Artemis really was himself Butler looked at Holly and asked "Where are we going exactly?"

"West Russia, twenty miles inside the border. Apparently there's some sort of magic portal in the woods." Butler looked at Artemis, unsure as to whether Holly was telling the truth.

Artemis only replied "Not in the woods captain. Above them."

…

The woods flickered past below the shuttle. Telltale signs of civilization vanished as they reached Russian airspace. Artemis peered out the porthole. Smoke rose in the distance.

"We appear to be late" Artemis observed, "The party's already started." A collective groan emanated from behind him.

"Holly if you would be so kind as to put us down east of the fire. The coordinates put the Rip as being almost directly south of the flames. With the wind going north it would be best to avoid them and the Rip."

Juliet nudged Artemis to the side and looked down as well. "You really do pick the best places for holiday Artemis". Butler glanced out of his own window and would have agreed with his sister, though professionalism kept his mouth shut. The fire was burning fast, and without any rain to dampen the blaze it seem to reach up and take the craft. It actually took the occupants of the shuttle a moment to realize that the fires, and the trees, were actually closer to them.

"Holly, do you intend to extinguish the fire?" asked Butler.

"Do you expect me to let it spread to where we land? It's better if I just put it out." With that Holly opened a compartment on the side of the ship, spilling dozens of spherical shapes into the forest. "Foaly's new fizzlers" she explained. "He made some upgrades while we were in limbo." The fire dissipated as Holly made to land in a clearing. As soon they touched down Holly, Juliet and Butler came out and began to scout the area. Artemis was to stay behind and coordinate. Orion wasn't happy

"You know could exit this mighty craft and assist them" he grumbled.

"I'm supposed to remain behind and help by keeping someone from investigating" Artemis said.

"But what of the thrill of new discovery. Of adventure."

"We're more likely to be eaten by some cosmic monstrosity then learn anything of it if we leave. If anything did exit the Rip then its best that we stay behind and let Butler take care of it."

"Artemis, if we were to let Butler and the others to handle a situation such as that then there would be nothing left to learn of. And this is a once in a lifetime chance. Shouldn't we embark with fate and see what the realm has to offer."

Artemis stared at the computer screen for several moments. Orion was right. Somewhat. If he left the shuttle he would place himself in danger. But if he missed an opportunity like this… Artemis Fowl never missed his opportunity. Sensing that he had succeeded in convincing the boy, Orion cheered in the little home of the maze that was Artemis's head.

Artemis stepped out into the sunlight. The forest surrounded him. Hearing the breaking of branches, Artemis turned to see a lithe blond figure stepping delicately from the shrubbery. "Ah Juliet, I would like to assist you in fin…ding… " Artemis starred at the strange boy who emerged, slowly dragging Juliet behind him.

**A/N: please review and comment. I've decided to alternate between the viewpoints of characters based on the universe they came from. Characters of Leviathan next.**


	3. Chapter 3

**Chapter 3**

**A/N: need beta reader. Don't own anyone.**

Deryn had been woken by the water. It hadn't been too long after she landed that she had decided to sleep. Normally a person would have decided to, say, try to escape the brush fire that her downed Huxley had started. Normally a person would have decided that they had gone mad if they had been hurled through a storm of blue lightning and watched as thousands of impossible battles played out around them. So with this in mind Deryn decided that the best, most sensible course of action was to fall asleep and see if she woke up in her cabin, away from this Russian forest, perhaps never having placed that bloody letter to Alek on his bed, maybe even having never met him and Volger and the rest in the first place.

The water dosed this hope, along with the fire that had slowly been creeping towards her. Still groggy from the nap Deryn pulled herself into motion. The forest stretched out around her forcing her to pick which way she went. Eventually choosing the direction that the Leviathan would have taken (further into the nation) Deryn began the long trek back to civilization. "If they try to hang me for treason they're have to think again." She said aloud. It was too lonely out here not speak to someone, even if there was no one around.

As she walked Deryn began to think of the storm. Hours of memorization and study seemed useless when compared to the storm. It had sprung out of nowhere, completely engulfing her and the Huxley. And whatever observers said there was no such thing as blue lightning. Deryn herself could testify to that. And the visions… Deryn shook her head trying to come up with some reason for the strange ships that had appeared. They couldn't have been her imagination. And they couldn't have been air pressure making her delirious. There had to be some answer to the appearance of a barking clipper ship in a storm thousands of feet up in the air. Her dad had always told her that there was some answer to everything. That everything had a reason.

Her musings were cut short by crackling twigs. Drawing her rigging knife Deryn sidled up against a tree and waited. The twigs kept breaking the noise moving ever closer to her hiding spot. At the last possible second Deryn whipped the hilt of her blade at what she thought was the head of whatever was nearing her. The creature collapsed. Looking down at what had nearly found her Deryn couldn't have brought herself to be surprised when she saw that she had just knocked out a woman. The girl was in her mid-twenties, blond and looked to be a little taller than Deryn.

Stranger still was the girls clothes. Now Darwinians aren't particularly offended by the more vulgar aspects of gender politics, but even from her standing, Deryn would have told the girl that she was pushing at the boundaries of acceptability. Her clothes were skintight and exposed almost too much cleavage to be considered decent. Deryn was about to pick her up and try to see which way she came from when she moaned loudly and opened her eyes. For a moment Deryn and the girl looked at each other before the girl swore. Deryn recognized the word as German and smiled at the girl. "Ooh its good you're a Clanker." before knocking her out again.

Searching the girl until satisfied that she wasn't armed Deryn slung her over her back and decided that she would head east-northeast and find the Clankers the mystery girl had come with. It seemed as through the girl had been searching for something. Yeah, me. Deryn thought. It's not like there's something else out here that the barking Germans would want to find.

Well, ignorance is bliss.

Several minutes passed as Deryn lugged the girl along. Her muscles could carry her for a few hours if it came down to that. And if the girl came to Deryn could always make her walk. Deryn was starting to wonder at the girls name when she came onto an open clearing. A young man stood in the center of the field, his side turned towards her. Behind him a walkway led up to … empty space. Deryn dropped the girl and picked up a stone. If she could just get him from here than no one would be the wiser and she could find the craft they came in. Straightening she watched the boy turn to see her. "Ah Juliet, I would like to assist you in fin…ding… ".

Deryn whirled her arm like a sling and released the stone. The boy hopped back as the stone threw sparks over the walkway. Deryn ran flat footed at the boy as he reversed away from her. His heel, amazingly, caught on the stone she had only just thrown and tumbled back. Deryn jumped on the boy and pressed her rigging knife to his throat. "Know then, you're going to take me to your plane and get me back to the Leviathan."

The boy murmured something, over and over. "Are you cracked in the attic boy?" He just kept muttering under his breath. For a moment she wondered if he was praying. Then he heard him.

"5 25 125 625 3125".

"You are cracked in the attic. "Deryn stared down at the boy, unsettled. There seemed something fundamentally wrong with him. He seemed too small to be a soldier. Too pail either. But there was something more. He seemed almost familiar to her, an old friend long forgotten. Then she saw his eyes.

"Your-r-r eyes, h-how do you…" A shadow fell over his face, her tone breaking him from his number trance. His mismatched eyes burrowed into hers for a moment. Then he looked up, arching his head back and said one word.

"Butler."

Deryn starred at him for a second, uncomprehending. Then she saw the shadow had fallen over her to. She looked up… and straight into a black hole.

…

Alek had just entered his cabin when he saw the note. Picking up the letter he saw it had been addressed from Dylan. Alek frowned. Why would Dylan give him a letter if he could just talk to him? Dylan had never seemed the kind of boy to try to talk indirectly. He was a plainspoken boy. Alek moved to the desk that stood in his room when he felt his stomach start to do backflips. Stepping back out he called to an officer that was running past. "Sir, why are we descending?" The officer looked at him and shrugged. The feeling of falling intensified. Alek gripped the frame of his door for balance. For a moment he thought that the ship was venting every bit of hydrogen it had. The idea was followed by a sovern BOOM. Looking after the officer that had been running through the halls Alek quickly decided that Dylan's note could wait. Shook up from explosion Alek struggled in placing it in gently in his pocket before starting off toward the bridge. At least he could figure out what had happened to the ship.

The Airship's gondolas were nearly on the tree tops when Alek reached the bridge. He had fallen twice in his attempt to reach the front of the ship. Standing at the helm, Captain Hobbes and Dr. Barlow were arguing over some storm while Mr. Rigby watched on, slowly shaking his head.

"Captain, why did we descend?" Alek asked. Hobbes and Barlow kept talking, but Rigby looked at Alek and gestured to come forward.

"I know that Your Highness would like to be informed of what has happened on dorsal just now, but we have more pressing matters to discuss." Alek wasn't sure whether Rigby had meant to get the attention of the captain and boffin or to tell him off, but it certainly worked in the former aspect. Both of them looked at Alek. Was it simply his imagination or were Dr. Barlow's eyes wet.

"Your Highness, we really can't talk right now. It's imperative that we relay our findings to the admiralty."

"We have no findings." Dr. Barlow cut in. "We can't leave now, not when midshipmen Sharp was in that."

Alek's pulse sped up. Dylan's in danger.

"And if the Germans find this while we're gone then we may as well wave the white flag and sue for peace."

"Wait, wait, what was Dylan in?" Alek interrupted. Both Hobbes and Barlow looked at him, then back at each other. Dr. Barlow's eyes looked wet again.

"Maybe it would be best if I told him." Rigby put in. Looking at the he clarified "If I may." The captain nodded and let him Mr. Rigby out. In the hallway Rigby looked down on Alek. Suddenly Alek wasn't sure he wanted to hear what he was going to say. "I know that Dylan was your best friend." Rigby began. "Your only friend on the ship. But the thing is when we were venting the hydrogen Dylan was in a Huxley above us."

Alek started. "Why were you venting hydrogen when he was in the air?" This had to be some cruel joke. They wouldn't actually endanger Dylan. Wouldn't they?

"A storm came right over us. The lightning nearly got the whole ship. If we hadn't dropped then we'd be a ball of fire in the middle of nowhere".

"But couldn't you winch Dylan down. Try to get him back to safety."

Rigby starred his boots, as though they held the reason why he had done what he had. "The storm didn't just form above us. It formed around Dylan."

Alek swayed on his feet. He hardly heard Rigby cry out. Didn't hear the pounding of feet. Didn't even hear himself hit the floor. Dylan was gone.

…

Alek watched the world slowly revolve around the Leviathan from dorsal. Trees. Sun. Hills. River. Trees again. The Leviathan had circled this patch of sky for two days now, steaming up and down the region in search of Dylan. The Admiralty had agreed with Dr. Barlow that they had not managed enough data on whatever was up there and would need to stay here for further study. But Captain Hobbes wasn't sending any more of his officers up there to see if the anomaly had changed position and certainly wouldn't risk his ship. So now the ship couldn't leave, but couldn't study the anomaly. So the crew had set about to find Dylan's body. Mr. Rigby had told Alek that even if Dylan had been in the center of the explosion of hydrogen that there should still be a body to be found. But days of searching on the ground and in the air had yielded nothing except tired men and hungry tracking dogs. It seemed like there was no body to be found.

They still planned a memorial service, regardless of the body. Klopp had told Alek that it was an old superstition that sailors would need to honor the dead even if they weren't found before the first Sunday after they went missing, lest there spirit haunt the men for the rest of their lives. Alek only hoped that, somehow, Dylan was out there, trying to make his way back to the ship.

"May I speak with you, your Serene Highness?"

"Of course, count Volger, you may." Alek looked at the count. Volger had been working his way out of his room for quite some time. It had been volunteering to help search for Dylan that had turned the Captains ear for him. Having a wildcount to track Dylan was worth three teams of men and dogs. Yet the hunt was taxing for Volger, wearing him down faster than any of the soldiers. But it was good that he would help search for Dylan.

"I don't know why you grew so attached to Mr. Sharp so quickly. He is a good soldier but it wouldn't befit an Archduke to be seen with such rift raft.

"Count…" Alek began warningly.

"But I do feel for you. I can see how it seems that you've lost a brother." Volger watched as the sun passed by. "I still remember how by brother, Aldrich, took a bullet for me." Alek had heard of Aldrich Volger. He had been a soldier that had kept his brother from dying in the Balkan wars.

"Count, it's touching that you would believe that I thought of Dylan as a brother. But he was a friend, nothing more." That was a lie and Alek knew Volger would know it. But it helped to talk about Dylan.

Volger cleared his throat impishly, as though he had something that he needed to tell Alek, but rather dreaded it. "Would you allow me to speak frankly, your Serene Highness?"

"Yes."

"I did believe that your trust with Mr. Sharp was unfounded, but I did know that he was never to betray you. He was good at keeping secrets."

"He was worthy of our trust Volger but if you intend to insult his memory then I, what are you doing." Midway through Alek's sentence Volger had sprung up and began pulling out his spyglass. Standing up along with him Alek saw a distant shape, approaching from above the horizon. "Is it a zeppelin?"

"No, it's another one of these godless airbeasts. The range is too far for me told read the name." Handing the spyglass to Alek, Volger waited for him to read the distant lettering.

"It's the Minotaur. That's the ship that Dylan cousin is serving on."

Volger nodded grimly and murmured. "And so he will know what happened to her." With that he turned on his heal and left for the bridge. Alek stood there for a minute before turning to follow Volger. He was nearly down the spine when he thought something was strange about what the Count had said, but couldn't put his finger on it. Shrugging he continued down.

The Leviathan had been running low on supplies for the last few days so the Minotaur was also to resupply them and replace them in the study of the anomaly. Several Huxley's where tethered together and loaded to bring the supplies over. Jaspert Sharp was with them. He had the same blue eyes of his cousin, but a shock of coal black hair in difference to his siblings. The letter from Dylan, unopened since he first found it in his room, weighed heavily in Alek's pocket. "So which one of you is Aleksandar?" Scanning the small crowd his eyes alighted to Alek.

"So you're the prince my cousin's talked so much about. You don't look like the princely type." Alek looked at the man, confused. He didn't seem to be mourning.

"Yes I am. I would. "

"Did he like the ship?" Jaspert cut him off. Snaking his arm around Alek's shoulder Jaspert lead him away from crewmen.

"Well yes, but."

"Tied knots, worked on the rat lines?"

"He DID, but he just."

"Just what." Jaspert eyed Alek. "Just died?"

"YES, don't you care about him?" Alek shouted. Jaspert seem to brush off Dylan's death, as though it was a simple as swatting a fly. But then Jaspert's eyes flashed. And in a blink of one, Alek felt cold steel on his neck.

"If you ever say I don't care about Dylan ever again, you'll be telling it to him personally." Jaspert threatened. Withdrawing the blade he continued. "Besides, Dylan died doing what he wanted to do. Flying has always been his love." Alek stood rigid, speechless from the man's outburst, almost forgetting why he had come to meet him. He pulled the letter out of his pocket and thrust it into Jaspert's reach. Jaspert looked at the letter, uncomprehending.

"This letter's from Dylan. It's pretty much all I have left of him. I think he would have wanted you to have it."

"If he gave it to you it's yours. Dylan always meant what he did." Jaspert said, trying to shove the letter away.

"I want you to have it then."

"Why?"

"Because," Alek said, fighting to keep his voice level, "I think that it would be easier for me to deal with him if I don't have it."

Jaspert eyed Alek suspiciously and took the letter. Unfolding the paper he read to himself. The color drained from his face, his eyes moistened. Voice shaking he asked, "Have you read this, Alek."

"No"

Before Alek could speak further Jaspert spun, throwing the letter out the window. For a moment Alek watched the man's back, it heaving in sobs before asking, "Why did you do that?"

Jaspert told him, but the words were lost in the aerial attack siren.

**A/N: these just keep getting longer. Action for the next chapter, and maybe some lectures.**


	4. Chapter 4

**Chapter 4**

**A/N: If I may speak before the story, I am finding it rather hard to keep in line with the tones of both universes. While both largely deal with children maturing into adults, Artemis's universe does this though a fantastical backdrop of fairies and magic, while the tales of Leviathan are set against the stark fears of war. Plus I still need a beta. I'm considering Holly Marie Fowl. What do you say, girl?**

Artemis watched as the boy slowly raised his hands in submission. Later on he would admit, at least to himself, that he always felt far safer with Butler around. There was just something about the Eurasian man that let him sleep easier at night. He knew no one would fight him and win, not even a troll. So there was little need to worry.

So it came as a shock when the boy on him swung his knife into Butlers arm.

Butler grunted in pain and pulled the trigger. The boy was already out of the way, the force of his thrust driving him sideways, off Artemis. Rolling over the assailant tried to find a projectile. Butler twisted and fired again. Something flashed red off the boy and he collapsed.

Artemis pulled himself up to his feet and turned to Butler. "Did you hit him?"

"I was aiming to miss. Holly got him." Butler answered. Indeed, the elf was standing over the unconscious boy trying to pick him. Butler went to the clump of bushes that Juliet was hidden in while Artemis moved to help Holly. Looping his arm around the inert boy Artemis dragged him to the ship and propped him up against the hull before speaking to Holly.

"Very good shooting captain, you've tagged another runner."

Holly looked at Artemis, surprised and not entirely sure of his compliment. "He wasn't much of a target just lying there on the ground. But what's he doing out here anyway? He can't live here and he didn't take a vehicle, those would have shown up on our scans from the flight. Unless he's been here for a while, then they would have cooled down and slipped passed the shuttles detectors. So how did here get here?"

"I can't that now. He is obviously athletic though. He managed to stab Butler. By the way he needs your help with that." Artemis looked over his shoulder and was satisfied to see Holly running off to heal Butler. Kneeling to examine the boy, Artemis was struck by a wave of the familiar. It seemed as though he had seen this boy before, somewhere far away and strange. Artemis shrugged off the feeling and examined the boy proper. Hard muscles composed his shoulders and arms. His hands were calloused from extensive use. An old-fashioned airmen's coat was protecting him, while beneath it a more formal shirt covered him. Artemis lingered on this uniform. The appearance was not unlike that of the British Air-force from the turn of the century albeit slightly differed in particulars. Artemis remembered the voice he had spoken with, a distinctly Scottish lilt underlying the words. This, along with all the rest told him almost everything he needed.

But one question still irked him. What was this boy's name? Moving the coat Artemis checked the soldier's chest for a name. He found this rather quickly, a ledger stitched to his shirt. Dylan Sharp, Artemis read. Then he saw something else. A small badge was pinned to his shirt, red and blue stripes with the picture of a bearded man. This read "for gallantry in the air" though Artemis was less interested in the inscription then the craving. What was Charles Darwin doing on a British badge from the nineteen hundreds?

…

The Deeps maximum security prison, Atlantis trench.

Opal Koboi was a happy pixie. Stuck in cell in the most heavily fortified and policed prison in the fairy world wasn't the most joyful scenario to be stuck in. You couldn't chase your dreams of vengeance if you were watched twenty-four seven by a dozen specially trained guards, backed up by nearly 300 others. It was hard to enjoy the little things in life like murder if you didn't have the freedom to choose your own clothes for yourself. Getting lost in music was out of the question, if it distracted the guards. Good food was in short supply, thanks to hungry inmates and guards. But if you were stuck in the same place, essentially alone for long periods of time, you did with what you had and made the best of it.

So Opal dreamed of the day that she escaped, making her way to the surface, revealing the people to the mud men and stepping over the corpses of Holly Short, Artemis Fowl and Foaly the centaur to do it. And if a few thousand humans and fairies died on the way, well, that was a bonus. She was doing exactly this when the front door to her cell opened. Looking up from the bed she was lounging on Opal was greeted with the sight of a large strangely sweaty pixie looming over her that, in return, seemed to look right through her. Speaking in a halting voice it said; "Opal Koboi you have been charged with several counts of attempted murder and are to be executed".

Opal cocked one rounded ear at the guard, seeming to not comprehend.

"To be executed? The courts haven't ruled that way in centauries." Opal rose and looked down on the shorter pixie, blessing her human pituitary gland all the way. "Who sent you?"

The pixie ignored her, continuing in the same irregular voice; "I am to escort you to the outside of the prison where you will be executed." Turning to exit the guard did not wait for her response, leaving Opal to quietly follow him.

Moving through the halls Opal noticed that they seemed to avoid most guards and those they met where staring quietly past her and her escort. Suddenly the leading pixie doubled down into a sprint charging through the halls. Opal had to toss her legs out in wild strides just to stay near him. A patrol of guards turned the corner ahead and gawked at the juggernaut and escapee trailing behind him. Sparks shot off the jumbo pixie and connected with the patrol, freezing them in place. The guard bowled them down, Opal now truly well and lost as to explain how he was managing to cut through the guards. The why of it was easy enough though. "An escape attempt. Ingeniously crafted and executed, all for me. I do hope I get to meet the person who came up with this."

Ignorance is bliss after all.

An electronic door flew open ahead of the duo and revealed an upper level yard, open to the rest of Atlantis. A shuttle floated on the far end of the yard, besieged by guards and inmates. The pixie charged into the fray and vanished under the crush of bodies. Opal froze, suddenly unsure of her next move. The indecision lasted mere seconds as the guard that had led her to the yard began to glow and spark. Opal covered her head as the pixie exploded into a gory mess, stunning several guards and prisoners. Seizing her chance Opal sprinted the last few dozen yards to the shuttle, scrabbling and tripping onto the steps and into the cockpit.

The helmeted pilot didn't spare her a glance, only waiting until she was strapped before gunning the engines. The aircraft hurtled towards the dome, arcing over the skyscrapers to cleanly avoid sentries. Opal noticed that a gleam seemed to run parallel to the ship, almost right on them. A laser flash banished any thought of trailing ships from her mind. The pilot twisted the controls near to their breaking point, steering the ship away from the oncoming roof. A secondary flash was enough to make Opal wish to be back in her cell. If any managed to hit them then the ship wouldn't hold air, let alone water. Suddenly the gleam from earlier appeared again on the starboard of the ship, swinging sideways away from the shuttlecraft and down. Opal managed a good look at it and saw it was an exact duplicate of their shuttle, a hologram meant to lend her and her rescuer some time.

The pair of chasing sentries took the bait, diving for the false shuttle as the real one slowed to tail behind them. The four shuttles raced for the edge of the city, to the site of one of Atlantis's old gates. The gate system had been used for centuries in Atlantis, an easy way for ships to enter and leave quickly. The shuttles charged for it the sentries cutting lose with their engines, while Opal and her savior watched from behind it all. The outer gate opened to admit the shuttles, the second inner gate flying open fast enough to allow the craft through and out into the ocean.

The shuttles hit the water moving at nearly half the speed of sound, punching hard into the open sea beyond. Opal was shoved into her seats straps, almost losing consciousness from turbulence. The Sentry shuttles slowed to accommodate the shift in density, switching to aquatic engines and torpedoes. They didn't get to use them though. Scarcely in the water for longer than one minute when the faux shuttle swung low, exploding in a subdued fashion. The chase shuttles bore off, searching for whatever had caused the detonation of the shuttle. Over the course of hours several more shuttles flew out to assist in the rescue effort, running up and down the crash site, before ultimately giving up and writing it off as a failed escape attempt.

Opal, on the other hand, had been pleasantly surprised when the hologram vanished in the subaquatic explosion. It didn't mean anything for her, aside from the fact that she was now free to plot her revenge. But a niggling thought happened on her as she and her captor slowly flew from the wreckage, a thought she soon put into words.

"So who am I to thank for this daring escape." Sarcasm laced her words like poison.

The pilot swung the chair to face her and removed the helmet, a manic smile plastered on her face. "Why yourselves of course, but mostly me."

Opal smiled at her younger self. So the rumors were true after all. A second Opal Koboi, traveling from the past to change the future.

"Well I believe it's time we get down to business. Don't you?"

…

The captive boy stirred as Artemis look on, seated on the bed on the other side of the cell. The young genius had decided to do some further exploration into the Rip scripture while the prisoner slept. As he had dived back into the text, Artemis discovered that the strange text held more information than simple locations and coordinates. The mystifying text bore all the hallmarks of having been written by an incomprehensible genius, unparalleled in modern time.

But the knowledge went deeper. The pages writings hinted at strange trans-dimensional rifts, accessible to anyone with the right technology. But stranger still, as Artemis dug into the formulas the text provided him, it was becoming increasingly clear that without the technology to access the rifts they could not be opened. And if they were opened by some unfathomable force, then controlled passage between them was impossible, with any transients being lost in random universes, similar to how the time stream worked. In fact the rift between worlds was shockingly similar to the time stream, but seemed an ocean when compared with the stream, which was merely a river.

Which raised the question: how had the boy had arrived in his world, as it was the only one with someone who had only just know learned of the existence of alternate worlds and had arrived at the point of entry barely minutes before. The probabilities were astronomical at best.

As Dylan, the boy in question, came to, he began to struggle against the plastic cuff binding him to the bed. Artemis waited patiently as he fought to loosen the strap. Finally tiring Dylan simply glared at Artemis, who smirked back, before speaking.

"I won't tell you anything, you barking Clanker."

Artemis smirked again, enjoying that, after so long, he had the upper hand over someone. Deciding on a local accent and a bad cop persona, Artemis began the process of extrapolating the information of this boy's origin.

"If you believe that we need any further information, then you are sorely mistaken, Mister Sharp. We have all the data we need so as to not necessitate an expedition into the Rip. But a description of the event would be most helpful." Artemis let this sink in for a moment, feeling slightly guilty when Dylan deflated in shock. But it was an excellent question.

"I don't know anything. Just kill me and have done." Dylan replied after a thought.

"You really don't remember anything from your little trip down the rabbit hole."

"No, just kill me. I won't tell you anything."

Artemis switched tactics. "I found this interesting pin on you. Why would Charles Darwin be on an air service medal?" Pulling the badge out for Dylan to see, Artemis waited for an answer. Dylan's quizzical look deepened while he thought before replying.

"Well I'm a barking Darwinist. Isn't that obvious from my voice."

"Yes, and so I'm a Clanker for sounding like a Russian."

"No, you're a Clanker for sounding like you're German. The Russians are Darwinists."

"So the Germans are Clankers, and you fight with the Russians, even though you are British. That would mean that the Austrians are also 'Clankers'."

"Ai they are, hey, you should know that." Dylan, having finally caught on, glared at Artemis. Artemis cocked an eyebrow, before standing to leave.

"I do not expect a description of the time tunnel, only to know why you think that the central powers are called Clankers. And of course, why the British are called 'Darwinists'."

Artemis opened the door, preparing for the next part of the interrogation, before hearing a click behind him. It was a gut wrenchingly repulsive click, as though some part of him had been detached. Before he could get much passed that thought, a boot found the back of his head. Sprawling forward Artemis could only wonder how Dylan had freed himself from the cufflink, shouting out for Butler to help him. Butler himself had been waiting outside the room, in the case that the interrogation went sour. Smoothly turning, Butler back handed Dylan, knocking him out once again.

Artemis reached for a hand to pull him up. As Butler brought his charge to his feet Artemis turned to face the unconscious form of Dylan for the second time that day. "He dislocated him arm to attack me. Surely he knew that you would be outside."

Orion took this moment to speak into Artemis's head again. "Perhaps he thought it was something that he was meant to do. To fight the hopeless battle, the lost cause."

Artemis mentally glared at Orion. Of all times he could have started talking, now was the worst of them. But he did have a point, as much as he ever did. This boy's time was no less romanticized than the rest of the early twentieth century, so it was conceivable that he was simply one of those people. But still, it was disturbing to see someone so gung-ho try to take on Butler. Disturbing thoughts, though, resurrected disturbing memories.

"Butler, if I may ask, does this boy seem familiar to you?"

Butler examined the boy before resting him on the bed. "Yes actually, he does. I noticed this earlier, when he was trying to knife you."

Artemis made a show of rolling his eyes before admitting, "He does seem to bear resemblance to someone I might have known, though I cannot remember meeting anyone of similar description."

"Well, he seems to look a little like you." Slow silence greeted Butler's claim. Until…

"If you were a pirate."

Artemis nodded, choosing to take the opinion at face value instead of arguing and turned to his computer. "I need to reconfigure the ships sensor array. I'll best leave you to it."

Walking back to the front of the ship Artemis wondered about Dylan. They were certainly the same height, and of similar build. His face was alike as well; such as the chin had a comparable bend to it and his ears were nearly as long. But his bodily proportions were different, the shoulders too broad for his own family, legs nearly too long for them to be relatives. His hair was unlike any fowl relative Artemis knew of.

This all added up to nothing of consequence, however. At least at the moment they didn't. Artemis was suddenly aware of a slight noise in his head. Looking inward, he found Orion cackling serenely. "And I suppose you have an answer for our guest's presence, hmm?"

Orion gave the closest thing a mentally projected split personality could to a smile and countered "At least I've figured out some of Mister Sharp's secrets. Have you done the same?"

Artemis's prepared mental response withered on the vine when his computer beeped, the Holly's voice filtered through. "Artemis I have some bad news. Get up to the front of the shuttle. You'll definitely want to see this."

**A/N: like I said; Action. I intend to update on a weekly schedule, two chapters before the one I'm working on. So though this is the fourth chapter, I'm already on the sixth. See you next week.**


	5. Chapter 5

**Chapter 5**

**A/N: I hope the OC's are a nice treat. In this chapter we find out that Alek, contrary to popular belief, and epitome of randomness, is not a ninny. By the way, is my writing too ornate? Just wondering.**

The siren howled from around the ship, followed by gunshots. Jaspert seemed to understand the insistent noise as some call to action, and, with several other soldiers, made a beeline to the top of the ship. Alek followed, bewilderedly wondering why someone was attacking two airships at the same time. Jaspert had other worries, though.

"How did anyone get close enough to the Leviathan and the Minotaur? Aren't there any spotters on duty?"

The pair raced to the gut, then began to climb an inner ladder to the spine. Alek was still trying to figure out why someone would try to engage both ships when they couldn't possibly win, when a horrifying thought struck him.

"What if the spotters saw them and just didn't report them. What if the spotters knew the attack was coming?"

Jaspert cast a glance over his shoulder, looking down on Alek. "I don't think so. You'd have to be crazy to try that in the middle of hostile territory." Climbing faster, jasper and Alek reached the spine. Around them, soldiers scrambled to position, trying to get a bead on the attacker. High above a Huxley ascender peered down on the airbeast. Jaspert pointed at it. "See, they had to have reported the attack."

Alek almost told jasper how flawed that argument was when he saw the aero plane. The aircraft was missile shaped, the front bulging out, than tapering along the end to a stream of white smoke. A pair of green ethereal wings jutted from the sides, flickering and fluctuating as though they were made of fire.

Turning to see what Alek was staring at, Jaspert's mouth dropped open at the sight of the aero plane. But before either could react, or even alert someone else to it, the plane vanished.

Alek mentally retraced the path of the plane, trying to figure out what he had just seen. How could it just… vanish into thin air? Dread slowly crept back into his stomach. If it could disappear like that, it was little wonder as to how it had managed to get so close. Seconds passed in agonizing slowness, as though the whole world was waiting for the attack to recommence. A low whine filled Alek's ears, his heart thundering against his ribs. Jaspert looked back at Alek, trying to put the impossible sight into words. Soldiers sprinted across the spine, searching the air franticly for the invisible attacker.

The whine Alek had heard started to grow. Before he could ask Jaspert if he heard the noise as well, a sharp wind blew over the back of the whale. Turning to the source of the gust Alek could only stare, dumbfounded for the second time in so many minutes, as the aero plane reappeared, hovering over the Leviathans spine.

And descending.

The half-dozen anti-air batteries on the Leviathan turned to aim at the craft. Anyone with an air gun dropped to a knee and took the range of the craft. Alek stumbled back from the aero plane, Jaspert keeping pace. The Aero plane touched down mid-spine, slowly humming. The flaming wings extinguished themselves, revealing a latticework of cables. Taken as a whole, there wasn't much strangeness to the aero plane as the other weapons that Alek had seen. But then again there wasn't all that much to be strange with. So it did rather odd that the aero plane had landed on the Leviathan, having appeared out of nowhere, vanished, then appeared again, without some much as a warning.

The aero plane sat there for several moments, inert, almost acting as though it had done nothing beyond the norm of the times. Soldiers surrounded the plane. If anything happened, then it would be so much scrap metal in seconds. But somehow, Alek had the feeling that the ship would make it out intact and whole, looking no less as if it had taken a morning stroll. Then the ship did something astounding.

It opened.

The nose of the ship opened, to be precise. The inside was somewhat unadorned, with the exception of two seats, both occupied with what could only be described as a pair of costumed party-goers. The pair, a man and women, descended from the aero plane and stood in the center of the ragged circle of officers that had formed around their craft.

The man stood slightly taller than Alek, and nearly as tall and as old as Jaspert. A long red jacket, embroidered with gold inlay, cut not unlike that of buccaneers, covered his shoulders and reached mid-calf. Similarly red trousers and boots covered the rest of him, save for his head and hands obviously. These were covered with black gloves, and a three pronged hat. Similarly black hair masked most of his features, save for one eye and his mouth. The other eye seemed simply hidden under his hair until Alek noticed the solidarity of the shadow under his eye. This man was missing his left eye.

The women stood to his side, nearly a foot shorter. She wore a garb no less eccentric, and somewhat less conservative. Baggy blue and gray trousers with large gray boots covered her lower half. A mass of fabric surrounded her waist, an oversized bow just slightly above the cloth attached to her back. An almost indecently tight blue and white shirt swathed over her shoulders, reaching down her arms and covering her hands. A green scarf wound its way over most of her face; preventing the men from seeing much of it. A pair of clear, golden eyes stared at the soldiers around her and her companion, scanning the crowd before reaching Alek. Alek felt himself go cold, irrational fear welling inside of him. Then the girl was looking at the other soldiers and Alek relaxed a little.

The man stepped forward and turned to the most official looking man he could see. "We request a meeting with the captain." The man silenced for a moment before adding "And may you have your men lower their guns. They're rather frightening as they are."

The officer started a little before waving his hands in the lower weapons signal, pulling out his whistle to call for a message lizard. The guns went down grudgingly, but they went down all the same. The pair of new comers visibly relaxed with the guns safely pointed away from them.

As the message lizard made its way to the bridge, the man busied himself with talking to the other crewmembers. It was a very one sided conversation for the time it took the captain to arrive. When he did arrive, the man bowed politely. The women did not copy the gesture, but instead took a knee. The man straightened smoothly and spoke;

"Ah Captain, I hoped we could make a more civilized entry on your ship then we did from the air, so it would be best to start with names. I am Jules and this is my companion, Verne. We require asylum on your ship."

Captain Hobbes looked from one to the other before slowly nodding. "And my I asked why you have chosen to visit my ship, especially in the middle of a war?" The subtle threat seemed lost on the newcomer, Gats, who simply waved his hand dismissively and replied;

"You may if you wish, but this is hardly the center of a war. It would seem to be on the right of one though. May you show us to our rooms though?" A look of exhaustion crossed his face. For a moment he seemed aged beyond his time, as though he had come from a distant land and felt the pangs of homesickness. But the look passed a moment later, to be replaced with a sly smile. "You wouldn't happen to have any food, would you?"

The captain assessed the Jules and Verne, trying to find some hidden motive, before saying, "We have as much food as you want. If you would like to, if would bring our doctor to dine with us."

Verne suddenly spoke, a foreign tongue that even Alek couldn't understand. Jules turned to her, then back to the captain. "We would be grateful to except your offer. May I also invite some of your crew to dine with us?"

Captain Hobbes stared at Jules inquisitively, before nodding again. Jules pointed at imperiously at Alek.

"Those two, if you can spare them."

Where Hobbes had been gracious, Jaspert was indignant. "I'm not eating with someone who tried to attack my ship."

Jules smiled a cold, hard smile that had the same effect as Verne's eyes. "We didn't attack. We just decided to make our presence known. It's so boring on our side, so some fun was in order." Another dismissive wave rolled off his arm. "Let's go."

…

Deryn woke with pain throbbing in her arm. This didn't surprise her as much as it would have. She hadn't meant to dislocate her arm, but at least she had managed to kick the sodding clanker that was trying to interrogate her. So it was a net win, insomuch that she had done it.

"You awake?" Deryn propped herself up on her good arm and saw the largest man she had ever seen. Even the room seemed smaller with him in it. "That was an impressive move, dislocating your arm to try and attack my friend." His voice was oddly soft for a man his size. Deryn tried not to think of what could happen to her if he got it in his mind to attack her, instead focusing on talking a way out of him.

"I really would like to help you, but I have an airship to catch. And if they catch you, then they're attack you, with me aboard this ship or not." Deryn was assuming they were on an airship, having not seen any structures nearby when her Huxley went down. The giant didn't seem too worried about this though.

"The airship you were on isn't coming to your rescue, soldier. There wasn't an airship before we arrived, and there certainly isn't one now. So it would be better if you simply told us what you know." The man cut across Deryn's attempt to swear at him with; "We aren't your enemies. We only want answers."

Deryn thought about this for a moment. He definitely didn't sound like a clanker, even if his friend did. He actually sounded a little French, if only a little bit. Deryn sighed. There really was no way out, besides giving up what she knew. "What do you want?"

The giant leaned forward intently. "First, why is Charles Darwin on a medal of honor?" That was an odd question, but it couldn't hurt to tell him.

"Because Darwin was the one who first learned to mix life threads and fabricate beasties." Deryn watched the man's face intently, who stared back placidly.

"Life threads?"

"You know, life threads, the thing in your cells that tell you to grow and age and develop."

"Oh you mean DNA. Yes that makes sense."

"Well yeah, well DNA's boffin speak for life threads, but yeah you can call them that."

"Okay, you said something about fabricated animals. What do you mean by that?"

"Well, you know, we made them." Explaining this to the man was getting hard. He seemed less to be asking for military secrets then a full primer on the last fifty years of scientific history. But at least could understand her terminology a little.

"You made them. You mean you genetically engineered them for your own purposes." The man silenced into deep thought for a moment, leaving Deryn to wonder why this was news to him. If he was French then he would know all of this. Suddenly Deryn wasn't sure if he was French. The man's head perked up suddenly. "You said Darwin was the first to do this right?"

"Umm, yeah." Wasn't this man listening to her?

"What year is it?" The question came so far out of left field that Deryn couldn't answer it civilly.

"It's 1914, bumrag. Where have you been all your life?" This man couldn't be French. He couldn't be.

The man stood. "I have one more question. You mentioned the Germans and Austrians as the 'Clankers'. What do they use, if you use animals?"

"Walkers, what else."

And with that the man left. Deryn lay back on the bed. That had to have been the strangest conversation she had ever had. But it also seemed to be as awkward for the man. And if he wasn't French, what was he then? Why had he asked for the date to?

"I have to get out of here" she murmured. Getting to her feet Deryn tried the door. It seemed a worthless gesture for her to try to get out of a room where she was being held captive simply because a door had been left unlocked. Though, astonishingly enough, it was open. "Now where?" The hallway to her left seemed to lead somewhere. Deryn walked down, it turned a corner and found herself in a small meeting space, with the boy who had tried to interrogate her talking with the man who had questioned her.

But something else caught Deryn's eye. A door was open across the room, leading out to what look like the forest. She couldn't help wondering if her luck could hold long enough for her to cross the room. So she causally walked the length of the room, acting as though she always left an enemy vessel without any resistance. Before she knew it, Deryn was standing on terra firma again. "Well at least it's better than a barking Clanker airship."

"I would imagine so."

Deryn tensed, then slowly turned to the voice. The boy who had interrogated her and the man were standing in front of… nothing. Deryn tried to make the image make sense. She had just stepped off of a large airship, and now the air behind her was completely empty. The boy seemed to take her reaction in stride. "You are probably wondering how anything you are seeing is possible. Quite frankly, the answer is simple. You, Dylan Sharp, have stumbled into a parallel universe, and we have found you."

Deryn kept staring. A what? The boy continued.

"Everything around you is a product of fate simply taking another course. A point of divergence exists around 1860, where Charles Darwin learned how to genetically engineer species to his advantage. Our reality did not learn how to do this for nearly another century, so it would seem that everything here is a little off. And before you ask, the date is December 16, 2010." The boy stopped talking, patiently waiting for Deryn's answer. Deryn, a course, didn't have one. What would you say if you were told you had been transported to a parallel universe in the future?

The world around her exploded.

…

Alek stumbled into his room, half drunk and distinctly unhappy. The guests had insisted that he and Jaspert accompany them to dinner. Long conversations followed, then drinks for some reason, then a bet that Volger could drink Jules under the table, then more drinking, then a dismissal (Of Alek and Jaspert and _only_ Alek and Jaspert), then… then now. Alek had the distinct impression that the real purpose of the dinner party had been to try to learn something about Jules and Verne, but if that had been his intention, then the Captain had failed miserably. All Alek remembered hearing as far as any credible information was the fact that Verne (And he doubted that this was even her name, who names a girl Verne?) was from Mexico.

Plopping down on his bed, Alek tried to sleep. It didn't seem right that Jules could simply waltz on to the Leviathan. But that wasn't what kept him awake. It was the underlying feeling of wrongness that had pervaded the ship since Dylan had disappeared. He couldn't have just vanished into the sky, could he? He couldn't have disappeared into an inferno like his father. Alek sat up in his bed, trying to figure out how it all went wrong.

"_Mister_ Sharp?" A quiet and inquisitive, or rather perspicuous, voice came from the dark. Alek looked at his nightstand, with Bovril perched on it.

"Yes Bovril, Mister Sharp." Alek rested his head on his palm. "My only friend, the one person I could relate to, and now he might be dead. Just like my parents." It was actually easier to deal with his parents deaths. At least he had known that they were dead. He hadn't needed to eagerly watch search party after search party return empty handed, have his hopes dashed with each arrival. He hadn't the time to grieve quietly while running from a fairly large part of the German land armada. The prospect he may see their bodies again hadn't crossed his mind until several weeks into the mad dash for Switzerland. Here though, there wasn't those comforts to be had. Only the murky depths of terrible possibility and cruel fate.

"Do you wonder Bovril, will we ever see him again."

"_Mister_ Sharp?"

"Well, I will, maybe you will to."

"_Mister_ Sharp."

"Yes, I guess Volger would like to see him as well."

"_Mister_ Sharp."

Alek tilted his head. "Yes, Mister Sharp."

"_Mister_ Sharp."

Alek looked at Bovril, confusion coloring his face. It was obviously _Mister_ Sharp. Why did Bovril need to keep repeating that? A thought crossed his mind, one so absurd that he tried to banish it immediately. The thought persisted, clinging to his mind, directing query after query at Alek. Why hadn't Dylan bathed at the castle in Switzerland, when water was so plentiful on the Leviathan? Why had he been horrified of the idea of him and Lilit together in Istanbul, when Alek would have jumped at the chance in Dylan's place? Why couldn't Dylan be hung if they found out he had betrayed his oath to King George? What could Volger possibly use on Dylan Sharp to try to control him, when all Dylan feared was fire? What had Volger said on the spine? The answer seemed patently obvious when you thought about it, but so insane as to be beyond consideration. But Dylan had said that all the women in his family _were_ crazy.

Alek leaned over the Loris and said two words;

"_Miss_ Sharp."

…

Deryn opened her eyes. The world around her shook with thunder and hail before and behind, to left and right, above and (somehow) below her floating feet. She was in the heart of a storm. And looking into a twisted mirror.

"Well, this is barking strange." It was like she was in a dream, but she was aware she was in it, so it didn't feel like one. Then Deryn got a shock that nearly stopped her heart. The mirror image began to speak.

"You know this isn't so bad. Yeah I could get used to this." Deryn speechlessly recoiled from the mirror as the image left the frame, walking out to her. "So you're Deryn, ea. I've heard of you." The mirror smiled malevolently. "But you're such a girl. Hard to believe it, even if it's true."

Deryn found her voice suddenly. "Who are you?"

The mirror smiled again and leered over Deryn, somehow a few inches taller than her. "Well, I'm you. The you that's a boy, anyway. You can call me Dylan."

Deryn took a step back; ignoring the fact she was floating and thus really couldn't move. "Well, it been nice meeting you Dylan, but I have some Clankers to run from."

The malevolent smile again and the rolling of eyes. "You really believe that the people who captured you are Clankers? Where have you been for the last five minutes?"

"I need to leave." Deryn twisted on her heel, but Dylan was standing behind her as well.

"You know, I'm not like you all that much."

"Oh, you sure look a lot like me."

"HA, I couldn't be more different. I am real boy, not some girl in trousers like you." Dylan pointed at his sternum. "You know, none of these." Then down. "And one of these." Then matter-of-factly at Deryn. "And I certainly dress the part better then you."

Deryn inhaled sharply, and then found she almost couldn't. Looking down at herself, she realized that her middy uniform had been replaced with a skirt and corset. She looked like a girl again, stuffed into skirts! Dylan coldly chuckled at her obvious distress.

Deryn ignored Dylan's laughter, cutting over it. "Let me out."

"Ah well, that's not quite some-"

SMACK.

Dylan collapsed though the invisible floor, caught off guard by Deryn's right hook.

"Now try to stop me." Deryn grabbed at her jaw suddenly. It felt like she had been hit, not the other way around. Painfully looking for a way out, she felt something thud against her back.

"It would be my pleasure." Dylan twirled Deryn around, gripping her shoulder and outstretched arm, beginning an absurd waltz in the storm. "You shouldn't have done that." Anger flavored Dylan's words. His hand shifted from Deryn's shoulder to her hip. "You know, I could make you a real boy, like me."

Deryn twisted her head back, trying to meet Dylan's hateful eyes, her own widening in apprehension. "What do you mean by that?"

"Just get back through the portal. Let me do the steering. Then we're out and back on the Leviathan and no one will be the wiser. That letter you left for Alek won't mean anything because he could never prove it. They'd never need to hang you, because you wouldn't be a girl. Volger couldn't control you. And you could fly forever, without fear of discovery." Dylan's malicious smile filtered through his words. "You could let Aleksandar have his country, and never need to look back. It would be perfect."

Deryn waited until he had lifted a foot into the air, and then swung her weight in the opposite direction, freeing herself from Dylan's clutches. A look of hate danced over her face, mirrored by Dylan's subdued rage. "You'd have to barking kill me first."

Dylan tittered, an almost cheerful noise that didn't reach his blazing eyes. "Always so standoffish, aren't you Deryn? Oh well you harlot, then it looks like it's time for you to die." Dylan flew at Deryn, vanishing into her.

Deryn gasped awake, half stunned by the suddenness of her return to consciousness. The ground around her was scarred, as though some mighty battle had just been waged. The air thrummed with heat. Deryn pulled herself up, just in time for something blue to fly out of the trees, striking the ground in front of her and showering her with earth. A stone found its way onto her forehead. The world blacked out again and no dreams disturbed her this time.

**A/N: So Deryn's developing Atlantis complex, Alek is not a ninny, and a pair of mysterious strangers have arrived on the Leviathan. What could I have planned for the next thrilling installment? What are you asking me for, I just narrate? Nearly 4000 words in one chapter and I'm just hitting my stride. By the way, is harlot still profane? It means whore and it's definitely old fashioned, but I'm not sure it's insulting now-a-days. Anyway, this is going up on the crossover page.**


	6. Chapter 6

**Chapter 6**

**A/N: over 16,000 words total. Woohoo. Happy Turkey day Americans. Stay for the second A/N.**

The air was rent with shrieks and blaze. The man reached blindly, groping for it. He found it and screamed in triumph and fear. And then it was gone. The fire roared and the ground pitched and the man watched, almost detachedly now that it was gone, as his arms were consumed in light and smoke.

Jules came to awakening slowly, fighting his way from the ancient dream. Sitting in his bed he breathed deep, calming himself with the techniques he had been taught during his travels. Many ideas and ideologies had been known in the places he had traveled. He subscribed to only a few of the many, though found them most suited for him. Leaning against the wall that his bed stood against, he allowed a memory to wash over him, to cleanse the dream of what he believed, he hoped, had never happened.

…

The Endeavor glinted in the dying light. The ground beneath Jules boot's vibrated slightly, as the city raced for its next meal. Airships climbed into the sky, avoiding the spark-riddled towers of smoke from the cities boilers. Workers and traders bustled about on the upper tiers, but a few stayed to watch the strange spectacle. To witness the strange bit of old-tech, a heavier then aircraft, possibly succeed would be astounding. Everyone would want one when the engineers were finished with the tests. But all Jules wanted was to be gone, and soon.

"Pick up the pace already." Jules glared at the men fueling the craft for several moments before realizing how he was acting. Palming his head, Jules loudly apologized to the workers, which only served to confuse them, because they hadn't heard Jules's order. Jules pulled his head up to see Verne approaching with the mayor. They had decided on the aliases not long after they had met, as their real names, while not well known, were rather strange in the multiverse.

"Mister Direktor, it's an honor to have you here to see this, but you needn't come." This was typical Jules faire, modest and kind to a fault. He had been different once, but this was based on the word of Verne and she rarely managed to seem sane when speaking about it.

"Nonsense, our engineers have been studying this tech for years, and we've never came this close. You sir, are a genius."

Jules eye's darkened with memories. "I'm not a genius, just a young man. And under any condition it's your men who have been most helpful. I and my companion would never have come anywhere close to this without your help."

"Oh you're too kind Jules." There was a difference between Jules and the Direktor. While the Direktor was merely kissing up to Jules, trying to have him stay, Jules was completely honest, and truly thankful for the help.

And dead set on leaving.

"Launch time is coming," Verne interjected impatiently. "We have a deadline to meet and standing here trading complements isn't helping. Has the Endeavor been readied?"

The Direktor smugly nodded. "Yes the Endeavor is prepared for its maiden voyage. I reckon that the green storm will have something coming to them if they try to attack us again. We've only now-"

"Yes, yes, yes. We know all that. We were here when it happened." Verne shut the mayor down. "The Endeavor's blueprints aren't for sale when you can make more. You can drop the attempt to buy it from us."

The Direktor glowered at her, before turning back to the workers and shouting for them to hurry. Jules had a similar look of annoyance on his face, but when he realized that he did, he tried to relax it to a more neutral expression. Verne still caught him with the look on his face.

"Don't even think about telling me off. We both know that you would have done the same thing." Verne's glare almost got to Jules. Almost.

"I wouldn't have been that direct, Verne. I would have kind, eloquent-."

"Bull." Verne's stare softened. "You would have been cruel, selfish, and disarming. And you would have enjoyed it."

Jules sighed. So this was where the conversation was turning.

"It's always been who you are Jules, right to the core. It's always been you-."

Jules, for once disregarding courtesy, spoke over her, overriding the use of her name for him. "It's never been me. It's never been who I was." Jules was on the defensive. "I've always been a plainspoken person. A good man who never did what you, or that mad traveler, said I had. I have to believe that."

"Why do you have to believe it? Why can't you accept who you've been?" Verne pleaded. A tear rolled down her cheek. Jules already had her in his arms before she started sobbing. "You're the only reason that I've tried to return. Only because I loved you, ever since we met back there."

Jules held her tighter. Her sobs, her breath, her very heartbeat reached into his soul, wringing it in sympathy and love. He wanted to carry her to their room on the second tier, lay her on his bed and prove that he loved her to. Suddenly his left hand weighed a ton.

"If I was the person you say I was, then I could never love you." He whispered into her ear. The world around them blurred, and the two were alone, content in their little privacy.

"When we get back, what are we going to do?" Verne had switched topics and languages. They hadn't invented a secret language, simply taken one they had both known and used it when they wanted to be alone. Almost no one had known it during their travels, and so it had become their own private way of speaking.

"Probably try and find the traveler and send him though the portal. If we're lucky, everything will have fallen into place before that. Then we get on with our lives. I certainly look my legal age now, even if I don't act like it. Employment shouldn't be too hard to find for us."

Verne pulled away from Jules, sniffing a little. "Then can we… well, you know, get on with it?"

Jules grimaced, waving his left hand in a gesture that, from a distance would seem obscene, but in the immediate area simply showed off a golden ring. "I'll have to get an annulment for this first. It shouldn't be too hard for me. Then we'll have to get married, and that'll be a terror to plan. Then there's the honeymoon, then buying a house, maybe planning for kids-."

"You're ignoring the question." Verne was always rude when she wanted an answer. Though for a moment she looked thoughtful. "You know, a few kids wouldn't be too bad. We could handle it."

Jules chuckled darkly. "And what makes you say that?"

Verne cracked a smile. "Just some female intuition. And maybe the fact you've already raised two."

"I never saw it all the way through. They were only children when I left."

Verne was still smiling when the Direktor, looking slightly happier and dragging the head engineer behind him, returned. "It would appear that we are ready to fly. Jules, Verne, if you would kindly?"

Jules looked up into the clouds. "Are we in the specified location? We can't risk running into turbulence at the heights we could reach."

The head engineer (a thin, balding man) nodded. "We have reached the center of the great hunting grounds. The air will remain steady enough for you."

Verne was already approaching the Endeavor. Jules answered before following, "We'll put her through her paces, then check for altitude, speed, turning radius and dive rate."

Jules and Verne climbed into the cockpit. "Do you have it?" The question was raised fast enough for Verne to reply in the affirmative and still let Jules speak over the intercom without raising any suspicions.

"We are ready when you'll ready."

The head engineer brought a checklist to his eyes, trying to see against the glare of the sun. "Wind bearing at 3 miles per hour. The city is slowing for takeoff."

The enormous city began to slow from idle speed to stop. The treads far below began to slide over the soft earth. Jules waited for the signal. The city had turned with the wind to let him takeoff with the stillest air possible. A man raced onto the launch lane, brought out flare gun and glanced at his watch. Jules could almost feel the word as it reached him over the intercom.

"Prime."

Jules opened the engine port. Power flowed over the wing wires, cool plasma coating them with semi-solid force. The whine of the ascending engine turned to a roar. The plasma turned pale electric blue, the down force sweeping the deck with a sharp, lukewarm wind. The Endeavor was ready.

"Launch."

The man with the flare gun triggered the mechanism inside said tool and turned and ran. Jules brought the controls, a pair of padded levers, back far. The ethereal wings sifted colors to an angry yellow, shoving the Endeavor forward. Jules was forced into his seat by the climbing g-forces. Verne yelped as the Endeavor shot towards the edge of the tier. Jules forced the saunters forward, the wing color shifting into a more neutral green tint. Suddenly the whole craft was airborne.

Jules almost couldn't believe it. Here they were him and the love of his life, hurtling at breakneck pace, climbing into the sky. Fireworks sprouted off of the cities upper tiers. Radio chatter told him that the engineers were monitoring every movement of the Endeavor, checking for stresses in the energy wings and whatever else they had to do. Jules waited for the G's to dissipate, and then reached for a small switch he had installed in the cockpit. He had added many tricks into the Endeavor that the engineers were not aware of. This particular bit of technology turned the plasma runoff into a sort of shield. That had the side effect of rendering the Endeavor invisible.

It seemed that the Endeavor had vanished into thin air.

Engineers scrambled to get eyes on the aircraft. Jules felt a sharp pain of guilt as he brought the Endeavor on course for the portal region. Verne tapped his shoulder. "You had to do it. It's their faults for not figuring out what we had planned."

Jules face-palmed again. Verne had the annoying quality of being both right and extremely smug when she wanted to. He really didn't want to think that he had just dashed the hopes for dozens of aspiring men and women. So he concentrated on flying and reaching the portal.

"Give me the Crystal."

Verne brought a small crystal out of her bag. It wasn't much to look at. Ruby red and about the size of a curled fist, the crystal was a glaring reminder of what Jules had to do.

"Not that one, the old one." Jules reached back and took hold of the crystal Verne had given him. This one was much smaller, barely larger than the last joint on Jules's pinky finger. It had served him well in his three years of travel, and had saved him many times over. This would be its last use, but he hoped that it would make it through with them. It held sentimental value to him and he didn't want to part with it.

Bringing it up to his face Jules concentrated on it. "I know where and when I want to go. This is my wish."

The crystal glowed and the air outside became a tempest. The time tunnel opened-

…

Jules was brought out of the memory by a blank mental screen. Cursing himself, Jules tried to remember the details of the tunnel, which was nearly impossible due to the tunnels psycho-temporal nature. But he managed, diving into the memory again.

…

The Crystal's light died out. Jules opened his eyes as the storm rushed past. His psyche reached out of its normal boundaries, reaching to meet Verne's. The two met in the middle, so close as to be almost one. This, in Jules's opinion, was better than sex.

"Oh you wish." The thought came to him from across the void, racing both a thousand miles and only a few inches all the same. Jules watched as the tunnel rolled past them, serenely enjoying the image. A memory of his children surfaced for a moment, though Jules banished it with a thought. He couldn't risk changing course here. Who knew the effects at the other end? It could throw them completely off course, or jam the gate shut from the over side.

Or force a connection.

The tunnel was nearing its end. Airplanes, ships, trains, all manners of transportation rushed past. The portal opened at the end. Jules was vaguely aware of something entering the tunnel ahead, but chose to ignore it, dismissing it as an illusion, something not uncommon in the tunnel. It wasn't anything he would care about, right.

Now what have I said about ignorance?

The air beyond the portal buffeted the Endeavor as Jules guided it out. Now just to land somewhere…

…

Jules exhaled slowly, a long sigh escaping its confines in his more than weary chest. The idle thought of his children had forced the portal to remain open, even opening it two days ahead of time. And now there was someone in danger because of him. And not just anyone in danger either…

Jules sighed again, though this one turned into a yawn. Regardless of what he said, he apparently had the same sort of luck in life as… some other people said he once did. Jules waited for Verne to speak. He had been aware of her wakefulness for some time now, though hadn't let her now he had caught her eavesdropping. Finally Verne pulled herself up off the bed and crossed the small room to him.

"Bad dream?"

Jules nodded. "Yeah."

"Same dream?"

Jules sighed. "Yeah."

Verne sat down next to him. "You have to stop beating yourself over that. You did the right thing."

Jules waited for her to continue on, and was surprised when she didn't. Verne rarely let him have a free word when she thought she was right (especially when she was, in fact, right). But he had learned from the past that such chances should not be let past.

"I abandoned them. They all think I'm dead."

"But you're not. And if you wanted to you could always find the universe again."

"I can't. If I waltz right out of the portal, looking like… like this, then they're think I'm some sort of mad man."

Verne's hand caressed Jules's chin. "But you're not Jules. And you know it."

Jules wrapped his arm around Verne. "I know, but that doesn't change the fact that they still won't believe it. Even now, I can't be sure if they'll be able to handle the shock. It would be impossible."

Verne rested her head on his shoulder. "And what if they believe you? Then what do you do?"

Jules twisted, resting Verne's head on his chest. "Then I have my children back. I have my life back."

Jules knew that their position was not terribly uncomfortable, almost downright pleasant. But it wasn't the embrace he could enjoy with Verne. His had a wife, even here, even now. He didn't believe in relativistic polygamy, (the idea of having a wife for each dimension) even if he wasn't against the idea of it in principle. He was just old fashioned in the sense of love. A smile crossed his face. Anyone who listened to him for just five minutes could agree that he wasn't old fashioned.

Verne twisted her head to look up at him. "You know, the walls seem pretty thick. If we just keep quiet…"

"No."

"Killjoy." Verne lightly thumped him on the back, and then walked back to her bunk. Jules waited for her to start snoring before standing up. Putting on the trefoil hat he used to great effect, Jules stepped out into the hall. The Leviathan hummed above him, the whole ship pulsing with life, the outside slipping past beneath it. It had seen a great many things in the ten years it had lived. Jules reminded himself to ask Verne to talk to the whale when she had the time.

Something creaked behind Jules, followed by a voice. "Oh I sorry Jaspert, I didn't know you were…" Jules turned to face the speaker. Alek fumbled for an apology, though stopped when he realized he wasn't speaking to coxswain Sharp.

"Good evening prince Aleksandar. What are you doing at this late hour?" Alek grimaced, unwilling to talk. Jules turned back to the window he had been looking out of. "I was just getting some air. You may join me if you wish."

Alek paused and then walked over to the window. "I was just getting some air as well."

Jules smiled. "And you weren't going for a walk were you? Not going off to visit someone you knew, right? No don't even answer that, I already know what you're going to say. I've seen every trick that you young people have come up with. My children have tried everything on me."

Alek's confused look amused Jules a little bit, if a bit guiltily. "Aren't you a little young yourself for children?"

Jules's smile did carry a genuine look of happiness. "I'm older then I look, and smarter than I have a right to be. I had two children. A boy that was smart and funny. And a girl that would dream of being a soldier one day. She was actually a little tomboyish, though you would have no idea what that was like. She dreamed of flying."

Both stayed quiet for a second, and then Alek said, "Just a thought. How would tell if a girl was dressed like a soldier, and pretending to be a boy? How would you tell if he was a girl?"

Jules pondered this for a moment, before answering; "Well you would want to look at their neck."

"Umm…"

Jules reached for Alek's throat, catching it and squeezing. He waited as Alek struggled against his grip. Finally letting go, Jules rubbed Alek's neck. "This, here, is the Adam's apple. It's a bulge on your trachea, unique to the male gender. If you get someone worried or scared, then they're Adam's apple will become much more prominent. That isn't the easiest way to check a person's gender, but it's the most innocuous."

Alek rubbed his own throat, sore. He looked out the window, opening his mouth as though to say more, but stopping in case Jules wanted to strangle him again. Instead he and Jules watched the ground slip by. "This is what she would have loved about flying. The freedom, the whole skies open for you." Jules smiled at the memory. The smile didn't last long though.

"What's that in the distance?" Alek's question was strange enough to distract Jules from his reverie. Looking in the direction he was pointing Jules saw a remote glow, obviously miles out from the airships. Alek covered his eyes, trying to catch a defined appearance from the dark mess of night. Jules brought out his spyglass. It didn't look like a normal telescope, much more a square of clear crystal. Bringing it up to his eyes, the glass turned bright amber, the image in the distance growing to a definite shape.

"You might want to see this." Jules handed the glass to Alek, who looked quizzically at the glass before bringing it to his face. It took a few tries before he could look though it and not gasp and see the approaching shape. The moment he did, he gasped and dropped the crystal. "Hey watch that, it's important to me." Jules stooped to pick up the glass, though he knew that it wasn't broken. There were steel alloys that could take less beating then the glass. Bringing to his face Jules watched the approaching walker.

Eight massive legs heaved the land ship at nearly ninety miles an hour, if his glass was to be believed. Midway down the body a set pneumatic launch cannons stood ready to unleash a storm of airplanes. A radio aerial sat on the bow, with a second tower halfway back down the frame that looked like a sort of observation deck accompanying it.

"Alek, do you recognize that land ship? Alek?" Alek stood stock still, staring into the distance. "Alek, what is that?" Jules reach for him again, though Alek flinched away. "What is that?"

Alek turned to Jules and spoke in a frightened whisper. "It's the Herkules, and it has a Tesla cannon mounted on it. It's found us."

**A/N: I'm glad that this turned out so well. A little bit of a backstory for Jules and Verne, who technically aren't OC's. By the way, did anyone understand the references to the Mortal Engines saga? I'm reading my way through them so it's a lot of fun. If anyone figures anything out about the OC's, DON'T say anything. I'm trying to figure it out myself.**

**Oh and due to technical issues, I will not be uploading anything next week. Sorry, but the story is not over yet.**


	7. Chapter 7

**Chapter 7**

"**Political Frontlines"**

**A/N: My brain just had an idea. Keep an eye out for some new characters. Oh and now chapters will have a pseudo title.**

It wasn't so much running as it was being dragged. Alek wasn't particularly athletic and couldn't outrun Dylan if he tried. But she obviously wouldn't be able to beat Jules. Jules flew down the corridor, managing to almost reach the bridge before the general alarm sounded. The pair got there in a record.

"Where is Captain Hobbes?" was the first thing out of Jules's mouth. He didn't sound tired from the sudden sprint at all. The first mate looked up from the wheel to the two young men that had appeared in the room.

"He's asleep right now. We've sent a message lizard for him."

"That land ship is the S.M.S. Herkules. Ring a bell?"

The first mate looked confused for a moment, not understanding the question for a second. "Uh… you mean the Herkules? Yes we've seen it before, in the Alps. It nearly shelled us down." Jules pulled out the strange, fragile-looking glass scope he had just lent to Alek.

"The Herkules is carrying something called a Tesla cannon. Would you care to elaborate?" Jules glared as Alek watched the first mate pale at mention of the cannon.

"It's some sort of lightning gun. It could fry the whole ship." Turning back to the wheel, the first mate fumbled for and then pulled out a whistle. Blowing it in a complicated pattern he waited for a message lizard to appear. "This is a General Warning to all crew members on the Royal airship Leviathan. A Wotan class, German land ship, the S.M.S. Herkules, has been spotted off the port side, carrying a Tesla cannon of similar proportions that which attacked and nearly destroyed the Leviathan over the Mediterranean. We are turning to retreat to the Russian front. Triple repeat." The message lizard retreated into the network of tubes that ran across the Leviathan.

Alek couldn't help it. "Why did you only tell the one Lizard? Why not more?"

The first mate gestured at the tubing. "One lizard will tell another, then another, and the yet another. They're trained for it."

Alek looked out the window. The Herkules already had a definite shape in the distance, Jules intently staring down with the glass scope he had lent to Alek. Alek still wasn't sure that the Herkules would catch them. "How long until we're over the war line, first mate?"

"Nearly eight hours. We'll be clear of the Herkules long before that though. It can't hope to catch us."

"How fast can the Leviathan fly?" The question came from Jules, and surprised the first mate and Alek. The first mate still managed to answer.

"About sixty miles in an hour. If you think that the Germans can outrun us, then you obviously have not been on this ship long."

"I've only been on this ship for a few hours, as you'll well aware. And I don't think, I know." Jules turned from the window, a mask of calm over a sea of fear. "The Herkules is closing at ninety miles an hour. We have less than an hour until it's here."

"Then best speed must be reached men." The captain strode into the bridge as if he (and not the air force) owned it. "Your highness, if these engines are as powerful as you claim, then we have to outrun the Germans. Your men will be waking soon, so get to an engine and coax out every ounce of speed that you can from them."

Alek turned to leave, unsure if he could manage the task of forcing the engines to greater speeds, and was in the hallway when Jules grabbed his arm. "When you hear the song, reverse hard." The desperately whispered orders couldn't have made less sense. But Alek couldn't ask why Jules had said that before he had sprinted off. All he could do was watch as Jules vanished down the corridor.

…

The starboard engine was cold. As Alek dropped into the pilot seat that he and Klopp had rigged onto it, he knew that they would be wasting crucial minutes bringing the engine to full power. Searching for the ignition lever in the dim light of the glowworms in the ships flank, Alek cursed the person who had thought it was a good idea to bolt a pair of Daimler engines to an airship. Alek worked for a moment before remembering that he had had the idea to use the walker's engines. Finally finding the lever, Alek yanked hard. The engine purred to life beneath him, bringing the odd sense of accomplishment that usually went with piloting the engine pod. It was probably the fact that he held half of the ships enormous power in his hand.

Easing the saunter forward and left to engage the engine gears came simply enough. The hard part would be to get the engine to max power without ripping those gears to shreds. Hoffman scrabbled out of the hatch leading into the ship and jumped into the engine pod. "The Herkules found us again. First in Germany, then again in the Alps, now here. The captain of it, or the Kaiser, must really want you dead, your highness."

Alek pointed at several gauges. "We have to be careful. If we push the engines to far then we'll risk blowing out something important."

Hoffman checked the myriad of gauges before removing an engine cover. "If we need to get this engine moving then we can bypass a few steps for heating it." Reaching into the tangle of pipes and gears, Hoffman grabbed at one in particular and pulled on it. The engine's growl changed to a high shriek before roaring louder than ever. Alek looked up from the saunter to see what Hoffman had done. Hoffman pointed at a few of the gears. "I picked this trick up from my father. He fought in the Balkan wars and figured out how to get the engine to engage when it was cold from the night."

Alek nodded in appreciation and turned back to the front of the engine. The chill night air slapped at his face, trying to pull his mask off. The Minotaur fell behind them as the Leviathan powered forward. Alek gripped the saunter harder. Whatever Jules had meant for him to do, Alek knew that he couldn't turn the ship around. They would die if they did.

"Something on your mind, your princeliness?" Jaspert Sharp's voice sounded so close to Dylan's that it was eerie. But then Jaspert was a real boy, while Dylan was just a girl dressed like one. Or at least Jaspert looked like a real boy to Alek.

"We're not going to outrun the Herkules. We couldn't have outrun it if we had a day's head start."

Jaspert grinned from ear to ear. "Oh you shouldn't be so pessimistic. We just need a tail wind."

Hoffman looked at Jaspert as though he had grown a second head. "We have a head wind boy. We're not going to outrun a German land frigate if we can't get to full speed in the air."

A noise from behind Jaspert surprised everyone. Jules climbed out of the hatch, gloved hand gripping the frame. "If we could reach full speed then the Herkules wouldn't try to catch us mates."

Alek gripped the saunter harder, wondering if Jules could tell that he wasn't going to turn the ship around from his pod. "Why are you here, Jules?"

Jules leaned out over the engine nonchalantly. "Why do you think Alek? To make sure you don't keep our beloved ship going forward." An oddly blue gun was in Jules's hand. "So when I give the signal, you're going to put this engine into reverse."

Alek readied himself for the fight. "No."

Jules shrugged. "Okay then." Suddenly the gun was pointed at Hoffman. Before anyone could react, the gun flashed (no bang or recoil was seen or heard) and Hoffman collapsed onto the engine. Then the gun was pointed up at Jaspert. "How about now, mate."

Alek choked on his response, instead saying "Mutter mist." Alek look at the gun, then to Jaspert. To his credit, Jaspert Sharp looked like he was ready to go down fighting. But Alek wasn't ready to let him.

A growl, almost harmonious, suddenly shook the engine pod. Jules brought his gloved wrist near his face and nodded. "Now if you would kindly, Alek?"

Alek gripped the saunter, groaned, and pulled back.

The engines gears moaned at being sent from all ahead to full reverse. An icy wind broke over the pod, sweeping Alek forward a little. Jaspert flailed for a handhold before falling onto the engine. Jules stuffed the gun into his jacket.

"I've only the ships best interest in my mind. The Herkules won't hurt us now." Jules cried over the noise of the wind and engine.

Alek forced the saunter forward again, trying to look brave. It wouldn't matter though. No one would survive the Tesla cannons blast. The Herkules loomed large below the ship. The cannon twisted and tracked the Leviathan. Electricity built at the base of the tower. Alek closed his eyes. A thought crossed his mind; "Maybe I'll see Dylan in heaven. She's certainly earned the right to walk with angels."

A flash lit the sky. Alek couldn't help opening his eyes a little. They flew open in shock at what he saw. Instead of myriad of bolts piercing the air, a single glowing tendril of energy reached from the Herkules gun deck, missing the Leviathan by several yards. The strange tongue of light was almost directly across from the engine pod that Alek, Jaspert and Jules stood in. It reached high into the sky, connecting with some distant point.

Hoffman grunted suddenly, than properly woke up. Pulling himself up he saw the light and instantly knew what was going on. "I'm dreaming." Alek barely registered Hoffman's waking, because a far more fantastical sight lay before him. The Herkules was rising from the ground.

It happened slowly at first. The legs began to straighten, then, one by one, they detached from the earth. The land ship's bow tipped upward. Men rose off the decks carried, it seemed, by their fire arms. An aeroplane broke off a launch cannon and drifted over the Leviathan. The group on the starboard engine watched spellbound as the Herkules rose past them. A few intrepid German's hurled themselves bodily off the land ship, trying to reach the relative safety of the Darwinist air beast. Only a few made it.

One of the select minority that did reach the Darwinist beast crashed onto the engine pod, knocked out or simply killed by the landing. Alek didn't check which. The stern of the landship rolled past the group with extravagant slowness. The whole of the Herkules continued to rise, before disappearing into the clouds. The awesome sight muted the four, still conscious, members of the starboard engine. For a moment it did anyway.

"Well, we will have to bring this man to the infirmary, won't we mates." Jules's voice wasn't as stunned as the rest obviously were, but he still sounded like he had just seen an elephant jump though flaming hoops.

"How did you know that that would happen?" Alek couldn't help asking. Jules ignored the question for a moment, and then pointed to the sky. Following his hand, the group was awe struck again, as a cloud of blue lightning raced towards the Leviathan.

"Steel you mind, Aleksandar." Jules whispered the warning into Alek's ear just before the wall of electricity hit them. A set of visions flew by Alek's eyes. A girl who said something about people tasting like cake, then a series of explosion racing by him and destroying row upon row of strange crab-like walkers, then finally a boy devoid of features and made of light, save for his right arm and his left leg from below the knee, standing before a door.

Alek collapsed onto the thankfully solid engine pod. Jaspert's and Hoffman's shocked faces told him that they had seen the same or similar things. Jules was already in motion though. "Grab the German. Hurry up. Hoffman, you will be fine if you're not allergic. Your highness, we only have a few moments before the crew arrives and finds us here."

Alek pulled himself out from the pod, trying to make the vision's reasonable. Before he knew it he and the rest were in the ship's gut. Verne sat cross-legged on the pathway. Jules smiled cautiously and spoke a few words of the weird language he and Verne used, though was cut off by Verne when she slapped him.

The captain and first mate, along with a half dozen others, scrambled out of the hatch leading to the gondola. The portside engine crew, made of Klopp, Bauer and Mister Hirst, also climbed out of the passage leading to their engine. The Captain looked furious.

"Who told you to turn around and charge the Herkules? Which one of you tried to destroy our ship?" The Captain's eyes flicked from one group to another, the men behind him reaching for their air rifles.

"Uh… you did sir." Mr. Hirst looked apprehensive, as though he doubted that he was telling the truth. "A message lizard told us that you planned to rush the Clankers to buy the Minotaur more time."

The Captain did a double take, shocked that Mr. Hirst had told him this. Jules piped up. "We got a message lizard too. We thought it was on your orders." No one spoke for a moment, until Captain Hobbes, who dismissed the men behind him with a wave. "If the Herkules is gone and everyone's awake, then we might as well bring the Leviathan about and set off for Moscow."

Count Volger disentangled himself from the fray of Englishmen. "And though the threat is past we will still retreat?" Alek hadn't noticed his tutor among the soldiers, though his question was a valid one. The Captain smiled grimly.

"We are to reach Moscow by Monday and have two new boffins board. And there will be a gala in honor of Tsar Nicholas of Russia that night, and you and his highness will be attending.

…

Moscow was cold, but the gala was beautiful.

Swanesques strode around, delicacies loaded on their backs. Men on stilts and dressed in Russian army uniforms wandered the crowd, juggling and breathing fire. Musicians danced through the throng of noblemen and women. Dumen, noblemen elected to office, paced proudly though the crowd, confident in their power and station. Fanciful women walked near them, gossiping on the latest news of the Russia's. The war seemed a thousand miles away from Moscow. It helped that it was.

Alek tugged at his piloting helmet, conscious of his every movement, every eye on him. His family had started the whole war. Even though his parents had been murdered to instigate it, even though he had confessed his belief that the Germans had killed them, even though he had helped keep the Ottoman republic out of the war and (by proxy) saved the Russian war effort, there would still be those who would blame him. Volger was keen on reminding him of this.

"We needn't be here Count, if the crowd causes you so much worry."

"Nonsense Aleksandar, you will need the recognition of the Russian empire if you are to be crowned." Volger's eyes swept the crowd, wholly content with the knowledge that if Alek was threatened than he would be able to bring him outside as quickly as needed. He focused on a boy and girl that were approaching though the crowd. The boy spoke first.

"Aleksandar Ferdinand von Hohenberg, it is a pleasure to see that the war has held no ill fate on you. If only the same could be said for your father and mother." The girl knocked her elbow into the boy's ribs.

Alek bowed to the Tsarevich and the duchess, "And it is a pleasure to meet you again, Alexei. I take it that you and Maria have been well also?"

The grand Duchess Maria bowed solemnly to Alek. "We have been well, even with the war. We grieve for the men on the front, but a nation must have its leaders be strong. But we have heard of what you have been doing."

Alek put up a wide smile, though it slipped a little. "And what have you heard, Maria?"

"That you've aided a revolution, shot down a German zeppelin and saved the Leviathan on three different occasions. You've seen more fighting then any soldier on or above the continent and yet you stand here as though it is nothing." Maria's eyes glowed with aspiration. "How did you do it all?"

"Um… well… I did have help. I didn't do it all alone."

"Oh really? What about the engines you gave to the Leviathan?"

"Well that was just a good idea."

"Sneaking past the Herkules at the Swiss border?"

"I had practice at night walking."

"And standing on a moving walker under fire? Or piloting an Ottoman walker into a revolution?"

"The revolution just needed some help. It could have worked without me."

Maria tilted her head at Alek, daring him to contradict her for the next question. "Did you have help with telling all of this to the American that printed the story?"

"I do believe that his Serene Highness did not." A sickly looking man detached himself from the mass of humanity that surrounded the royalty. Long black hair and an uncut beard framed a gaunt, pale face. Alexei greeted the man warmly.

"It is nice to see you here Rasputin. You look well." Alek didn't think that this man, Rasputin, looked well at all. He looked rather sick. "Aleksandar Ferdinand, this is Grigori Rasputin. He is our family friend."

Rasputin looked down on Alek. "Yes, the heir to the throne of Austria Este. It is an honor to meet you here."

Alek tugged at the piloting hat. "I am no more an heir then I am a chicken. Anyone of noble birth would know this."

Rasputin blinked, then threw his head back and laughed. Alexei snickered, and Maria covered her mouth. Volger's hand was on Alek's shoulder in an instant. Recovering from his mirth, Rasputin looked down on Alek. "Any one of noble birth would also be literate. When they were handing out the paper that announced your parents' marriage, I returned it, because I cannot read."

Alek unconsciously rubbed the back of his head. "I'm sorry sir. I had no idea."

Rasputin placed his hand on the shoulder that was not occupied by Volger's and whispered, "Be weary young emperor, your enemies are not all German and Austrian."

Alek nodded, understanding the warning. Rasputin straightened, and then left. A beautiful woman replaced him. "Mother." Alexei embraced his mother, even though Maria abstained. Alek was glad she did. The Tsarina smiled at him. "Aleksandar Ferdinand von Hohenberg. It is an honor to see you again."

Alek bowed deeply. "Alix von Hesse, to meet you again is fortune. But where is your husband? If the gala is in his honor then it would be rather odd if he did not appear."

"Why, father is right there." Maria pointed to a man who rose a little above the crowd. Suddenly Alexei reached for Alek's piloting helmet. Taking the helmet he ducked into the crowd, leaving the four remaining to wonder what he was up to.

Seconds later Alexei shouted, "The Kaiser came to our party! Kill him so we can stop the war!"

Several Dumen and other noblemen laughed at the joke and Tsar Nicholas the second, looking much like his cousin Frederick Wilhelm, who was emperor of Germany, came striding through the crowd. Grabbing his son the Tsar shook him playfully before dropping to a knee and saying "You shouldn't take other peoples things Alex, it's unbecoming. And I believe this hat belongs to you Alek."

It took a second for Alek to realize that the Tsar was speaking to him and not his son Alexei. Taking the helmet, Alek also took the Tsar's hand. "It's great to see you again Nicholas. Has the war been hard on you?"

Tsar Nicholas smiled the same jovial smile that he had when Alexei made him seem to be the Kaiser. "Not as hard as it's been for you. Chased over half of Europe by the German army, only to be whisked into the air by Darwinists once you reach safe haven." The Tsar's smile vanished. "We grieved when your father and mother were murdered. No good Serb would have done such a thing. It is the will of God that you have been so safe for so long. And perhaps a union in God's eye will help end the war."

Alek glanced nervously at Maria. "And what sort of union would you purpose?"

The Tsar's smile reappeared. "Why, a holy one of course. If you marry into the Romanov's then you shall be recognized as royalty, and with your father's name you could lay claim to the throne of Austria. We have always married freely, even before Darwin learned us of the dangers of inbreeding."

Alek gulped and adjusted his helmet again. A thought of Dylan crossed his mind before his more pragmatic side kicked in. "Perhaps Tsar, we shall see. In the meantime, why don't we meet those boffins I've heard so much of?"

The Tsar's smile didn't waver, though Alix looked like she would kill him. "They are this way, your serene highness."

The Tsar guided Alek through the crowd, easily clearing a path with his bulk and his station. Volger whispered insistently into Alek's ear. "If you marry Maria, then you will be guaranteed the empire. The papal will shall grant you the nation. Providence has handed us the throne on a silver platter."

Alek waved off Count Volger, turning his attention to the men that had appeared from the crush of people. A balding man with black hair was the first to reach out for Alek's hand. "Vladimir Ulyanov, at your service your Highness. Call me Vlad."

"Everyone does" said the man next to Vlad. This man was taller and had greater musculature, with a full head of long blond hair. His eyes were hidden behind a pair of dark glasses. "I am Dr. Bergheim. It is an honor to meet you, Aleksandar."

Alek shook the hand of the boffin as well. Neither seemed particularly interested in the political climate as of the moment and enjoyed the banter of the gala. Alek was about to say goodbye when someone called out his name from behind him. Turning, Alek saw Jules, dressed in a black and white smoking vest, a top hat and strange blue head band tucked over his missing eye, with Verne, dressed in a pink skirt and corset, an orange scarf covering her mouth but letting her brown hair roll free, and Newkirk, dressed in full dress and looking like he wanted to be anywhere else. Alek was quick to introduce the three newcomers to the boffins, when Bergheim raised a question. "Jules and Verne? As in the writer Jules Verne?"

Jules chortled. "A happy accident doctor, that we were named this way. I would never have her go by any name then My Sweet if I could though." Jules chuckled again then looked at Bergheim. "Say, have I seen you before, doctor?"

Bergheim smiled. "I doubt it Jules. I've traveled far and wide, though I've never been to Germany. Your accent sounds about right there. Me, I'm Serbian."

Jules cocked his head, as though the different angle would define a sort of hidden feature. Failing to find that piece, Jules introduced Vlad and Bergheim to Verne and Newkirk. Vlad raised interest in Newkirk's first name.

"Well you have to swear you won't laugh." Newkirk blushed a little bit, as though his first name was an embarrassment. It occurred to Alek that he did not know Newkirk's name. Perhaps this would be his chance.

"It's Saulb, sir."

Alek tried to tell if Newkirk was lying, but then realized that he was being completely honest. What sort of English name was Saulb?

"Saulb sounds rather Arabian" Pointed out Bergheim, clearly thinking the same as Alek. "Was your mother a fan of the book Arabian nights?"

Newkirk blushed redder. "My mother said that it was the name I had when she found me. I am adopted."

Alek face-palmed, though hid the action as if clearing something from his eye. Of course Newkirk was an orphan. Why hadn't he realized that? Newkirk answered that question for him.

"My mother found me when I was about one year old. I was in a bundle right on her doorstep. I don't remember my parents, before you ask."

Bergheim smiled and Vlad nodded in understanding. "My brother adopted a child when he was twenty three. I understand how you would feel."

Volger impassively shook his head. Alek decided that the conversation would eventually turn the on-going war and so choose the first question. "I hear that you are fabricating a new type of fighting bear. How has the going been?"

Bergheim shrugged. "That would be a military secret. But it is very good so far." Vlad seemed to take a darker view then Bergheim.

"If we are to fabricate something to make our nation stronger, then we must first turn to the people that populate it. Mark my words; the nation that is first to set aside its ethics for the power locked in Man's life strands will be unopposed."

…

The gala continued long into the night. Alek shook hands and bumped elbows with the most powerful men in Russia. Talk of the war was infectious, though Alek seemed immune to it. Newkirk eventually vanished from the party, needing to return to the Leviathan to sleep. Jules and Verne left as well, though Alek suspected it was for more personal reasons. Finally, he found himself in the indoor gardens. Maria chanced upon him there.

"Alek, it is nice to see you again. May we talk alone?"

Alek tried to point out that Volger would not let him be left alone for fear for him, when he saw the Counts back retreating smartly into the gardens. He consigned himself to his fate. "If you want to Maria, we can talk."

Maria smiled and led Alek deeper into the garden. "My father has always wanted you to be the heir to the Austro-Hungarian Empire. He argued strongly in your father's favor."

"I know. Volger said that he tried to talk my father out of it personally, so I have his dismal powers of persuasion to thank for my existence."

Maria didn't laugh. "You still could be the heir. The Austrians have yet to name another for the throne. Just five words and you could be back on your way to true royalty."

Alek knew what those words were. "Will you marry me, Maria?" A few words, a piece of paper and time would give him all of Austria. It was too perfect to pass up. And yet… what would Dylan have done, if she was in his place?

Alek almost laughed aloud. Okay-, what would Dylan have done if she was in his place and an actual boy?

"She would have jumped at the chance." Alek had slowly grown used to the idea that Dylan was a girl. When he had figured it out, he barely had time to think about it, because the Herkules's attack had removed most other thoughts from his mind. But the three days that passed had let him warm to the idea. Granted he wasn't happy that she hadn't told him during the month they had been aboard the Leviathan, or the time in Istanbul, while he had spilled every secret he had to her. But whenever he had tried to see it from her perspective, it only made more sense. Maybe it was the fact she wasn't here to argue with but sometimes he found himself thinking that, in her place, he wouldn't have told her.

Alek turned his thoughts back to the present. Would Dylan have really jumped at the chance to marry someone at only fifteen? It had been a common practice in royalty for centuries. Everyone would agree it would be for the greater good. But Alek knew that, if anything else, he wanted something more from life. Weeks on the run, months of war, had slowly taught him this. And being stuck in the house of the Romanov's wouldn't be how to get it. But… if he could only have both.

The conflict would be over if he took the throne. The people of Austria wouldn't have to face the innumerable horrors of war. One choice and the whole course of history would change. If only it was that simple. Alek steeled himself for it.

"I'm sorry Maria. I decline."

**A/N: On my way to 5000 words. This was a fun Chapter. The mix of history and action is just right. For anyone wondering, yes Vladimir Ulyanov was a real person. We call him Vladimir Lenin. Saulb is a cute name. And the confusion of Alek and Alex would have happened in the canon. I got the idea from a drapple collection. Oh, and for anyone wondering if Bergheim and Rasputin will be important to the plot. **

**Uh …**

**Deryn: "Where was I in that chapter?"**

**Levi: "Unconscious."**

**Deryn: "For so barking long!"**

**Levi: "Time Flux. Time flow varies from dimension to dimension on a daily biases. But they remain constant in the long run."**

**Deryn: Oi bumrag, make sense!"**

**Levi: Snape killed Dumbledore!"**

**Good bye. Until next week my faithful readers. Plus;**

**Just eight more words and it's over 5000.**


	8. Chapter 8

**Chapter 8**

"**Lost in Translation****"**

**A/N: A note on my methodology and writing style.**

**I chiefly release on a weekly basis, but for every chapter I do, I'm working two chapters ahead. This acts as a buffer in case I miss finishing a chapter on the weekend or am busy. It also allows me to edit my work (No beta -,-. ) and check for grammatical errors.**

**My writing tends to remain fairly static, though I'm not above introducing tropes or ideas I like from other fanfictions, or anything I come up with. I'm a bit of a comma-phile, and have difficulty keeping my writing from being to ornate. I'm trying to find an answer to this. Course I could just not write at all but you'd kill me.**

**Story time.**

There was nothing wrong with Butler's reaction. That was what Artemis told himself while he was being jostled around in the cabin of the shuttle. It was perfectly acceptable to be thrown bodily into an aircraft when under fire. But this still didn't ease the pain every time his back slammed into a wall, or when Dylan's unconscious form struck him.

The plasma rocket had barely missed the fairy shuttle. It had exploded nearly on top of Dylan but, miraculously, Dylan had only been knocked out. Butler had reacted as any self-respecting Butler did when their charge was endangered. He got him out of harm's way. This meant being tossed into an aircraft, but it was an acceptable compromise to death. Then Butler did what any self-respecting Butler would have disowned him for. He went to save Dylan. The boy was only unconscious, if you could believe it. So Butler threw him into the shuttle and, coincidentally, onto to Artemis.

Juliet had already strapped in when Artemis landed on the floor in front of her. She smirked as Dylan landed on Artemis. "I've been meaning to talk to this one Arty. If we have the time…"

"Holly, we have to launch immediately. Whoever is firing those rockets isn't going to miss again." Butler climbed into the cabin, and Holly, not waiting for a word of it, opened the throttle wide. The usual slow ascent was replaced with a four G climb. Artemis had be trying to stand up and crumbled to the floor, his body suddenly weighing five hundred pounds. Juliet gripped the straps of her seat and waited for the acceleration to wear off. Butler pressed his hand into the roof of the cabin, trying to steady himself lest he roll around like an oversized bowling ball. Dylan snored on, oblivious to the peril.

Holly saw the cluster of rockets before the sensors registered them. Twisting the controls in her hands the shuttle pitched left, then up. Artemis and Dylan came off the floor. This was enough to wake the soldier up.

"What's going on mate?" Dylan muttered stupidly before realizing where he was. Holly twisted the control sticks again and a missile that was trying to ram itself up the shuttlecrafts exhaust pipe missed by inches, shooting passed a window. It detonated ahead of them a moment later, forcing Holly to roll or risk plunging though a cloud of shrapnel. Artemis and Dylan were glued to a seat by the G forces. Artemis took the chance to wrap his arms over Dylan and through the seat straps that lay beneath him. For a second, Artemis mused that if he was protecting Holly and not Dylan, then the gesture and position might have been more... enjoyable. Thoughts of Holly though, turned to thoughts of the Atlantis complex. The situation was perfectly acceptable for him to go raving mad, so where was Orion?

"Do you want me to be there?" Orion's sarcasm drew Artemis's thoughts inward. He sounded exhausted.

"The proximately of the Rip is messing with our bodies and minds. It's trying to reset us to an earlier period in our physical history. A period in which I do not exist, unfortunately." Artemis was intrigued that the time tunnel could produce such effects, but was worried that he would lose important memories if he let them go.

"Scared that your lose me? I never knew you cared so much." Orion clapped ironically and shed an allegorical tear. Artemis decided that there were something's he could live without.

Holly rolled again, Artemis pressing hard into Dylan. The boy's eye widened, though Artemis assumed that lack of oxygen was to blame.

Ignorance!

Artemis looked out the window left of him long enough to discern a blue glowing shape appearing from nowhere and racing in the hypothetical direction of the entrance to the time tunnel. "Holly, our pursuers are attacking the portal." Holly brought every drop of experience she had and twisted the ship towards the portal. The missile moving for the portal barely faltered as Holly danced the shuttle around the two dozen plasma rockets homing in on her. Artemis lost his grip and he and Dylan slapped across the cabin.

Holly drew level with the missile and twisted a camera to face it. The ship steadied enough for Artemis to stand and look out a porthole below him. It just so happened that the hole faced the missile.

Opal Koboi, pixyish and beautiful, looked into the shuttle and spoke. Artemis couldn't hear her, but he could read lips, which brought the meaning of the words to clarity.

"Artemis fowl prepare to die!"

Holly yanked hard on the controls. The shuttle bore off as Opal vanished into the blue abyss. The rockets weren't coming after them anymore. Holly was about to put them down when comm chatter alerted her to the approaching armada of fairycraft. The shuttle landed with practiced ease. Holly turned to Artemis and said-

"So that's whose ass we're kicking."

…

Dylan sat in his bed, glaring at the card. "A Huxley."

"Please describe it."

"A sort of jelly fish that flies."

"Ah. And this?"

"A message lizard."

"A lizard that delivers messages?"

"It speaks 'em."

Artemis placed the remaining Rorschach cards away disappointed. It seemed that the vocabulary of the two dimensions was simply too distant to be of much understanding without some sort of primer. Dylan Sharp had been unable to provide such prompt, so Artemis was going in blind. But he liked a challenge, and Dylan was an interesting boy.

"Okay," Artemis said, running the sums though his head "You seem to have Electra complex, Gender dysphoria and general psychosis."

"Okay" Dylan nodded in a manner and tone that seemed to suggest that he knew what Artemis was talking about. But his body language contradicted it. Artemis had to admire him for this, even though the idea that Dylan could lie convincingly was absurd. He could only assume Dylan came from a wealthy soldiering family. How else had a fifteen year old boy manage to enter the air force discretely?

Artemis smiled irrationally. One way or the other, Dylan was an interesting boy. He certainly wanted to be in the air-force. Of course, the Electra complex and psychosis pointed to the conclusion that he had joined up in memory of his father, whom Artemis gathered had died in combat. That didn't explain the gender dysphoria, but it probably came from the idea that being male (somehow) had been what killed his father. Stepping out of the room, Artemis slipped into the control cabin. Commander Kelp was sitting in his chair.

"Well what can we expect on the other side of that thing Fowl? Your reputation is on the line here."

Artemis rolled his eyes. "A thing, Commander, is that seriously all you can think of. And if my reputation is on the line, then certainly the whole of the fate of the People is as well." Artemis sat in the pilot's chair. "The portal seems to have a war on the other side. It certainly would be safe to enter now, but the situation may change rapidly. According to the scripts, we'll need a warlock on the other side to attempt passage safely."

Commander Kelp nodded in understanding, but secretly figured that Artemis had gone off the deep end. He seemed to worship the text's he had found. It was worst then when he had been trapped in police plaza, surrounded by hysterical civvies, goblins trying to beat down the door. Then he had known who to fight the enemy, but now… Trouble Kelp did not back down from a fight, but trying to reason with someone to whom reason was relevant to time of day was unsettling.

Artemis opened a screen on his laptop. A moment later, several screens filled with the eager faces of fairies. Foaly and Qwan took priority within the pack, and so got the largest screens. Foaly tapped at his impatiently. "We're ready mud boy. If you would kindly begin?"

Artemis didn't waste any time bringing the fairies council subcommittee up to speed. "The portal seems to rely on a system of psychological control. It will open with ease and allow passage to different dimensions if the necessary energy level, e.g. magic, is present. It's very similar to the time tunnel, though works on a principle to move matter and energy laterally in the fourth dimension instead of vertically. Any warlock with the necessary training will survive the entry."

Qwan pondered this for several seconds before posing the question; "Then how did a human arrive here?"

Artemis shrugged. "Amazing luck would seem the simplest answer. But I don't believe in luck so I'm assuming that Dylan Sharp, the human in question, wanted someone to help him rather badly. And because we can help him, he came here."

Commander Kelp slapped his forehead. "So he came here because of our charity. And I thought you were the biggest problem of the Families." Commander Kelp leaned forward, intent. "So can we ascertain that the humans won't try to cross over again? Or that they won't threaten us?"

Artemis shook his head. "The portal is positioned directly over the Russian front of humanities First World War. If either side found the passage then the balance of power would shift dramatically. It could end the First World War prematurely, saving millions of lives. Or…"

"Or…" groaned Foaly.

"Perpetuate it for eons. A war, that almost literally never ends." Artemis clapped his hands once. "This is where we come in. It is imperative we prevent them from learning of the Rips existence, and close their side immediately. If we send a powerful Warlock over, such as N`1, then they could set a delay and return from the other side before anyone notices. Neither faction is the wiser and we end up with an amusing cosmic anomaly to study."

Qwan stroked his chin, turning the plan over in his head. "Amusing is not a word I would use to describe a hole in the fabric of space. But can we see this human that came through. His world sounds fascinating."

"If he wants to meet you", replied Artemis. Dylan was still in his bed when Artemis came to get him.

"You goanna let me go, boy?" Dylan stood up, looking cross. Artemis assumed that Dylan had accepted that fairies existed during the chase towards the Rip. I made sense that he would only do so in an extreme environment. He was a soldier after all.

"We need to debrief you Dylan. We need- "

"So I just do this and I'm home free?" Dylan's eyes shined with apprehension. Artemis realized just how much Dylan wanted to get home.

"Just this" Artemis assured. Dylan popped up from his bed and was already out the door. Artemis rolled his eyes, even though no one could see.

…

N`1 calmly glanced over the astral charts. "The quasi-temporal flux force is all wrong. We'll end up overshooting by a century if the computers can't give us a clear reading on star location."

Qwan was holding a second chart, absentmindedly glancing at other star charts that hovered around him. "Try turning it upside down. Worked for me." N`1 took the map and flipped it over, chuckling when the fields matched up again. Being able to acknowledge ones successes and build confidence was a skill that most warlocks spent years trying to develop. N`1 had had the knack for learning new skills, but he could find joy in any situation, if only after he had been kidnapped by psychotic humans and nearly eviscerated by murderous demons. Forgiving one's enemies was also a skill that few warlocks mastered in their lifetimes, but N`1 could do it like a pro.

"Do you think that this dimension will be hard to enter, Qwan?"

A chuckling noise was as good an answer as N`1 needed. Qwan knew that entering a new dimension would be tricky business, but seemed to be rather laid back over the whole matter. This only made the whole situation even more hilarious.

"If dimensional travel was ever easy, then I'd moved to the nearest dimensions that's all beaches. You'll be performing a feat that has never been attempted before. You will probably get a talk show all to yourself after all this."

N`1 wanted to say that he would only probably get a talk show, because the dimension jump would only probably work, when the rest of Qwan's statement registered. "What do you mean; I will be preforming a feat? Where will you be?"

Qwan smiled sheepishly, and a little sadly as well. N`1 could feel the sense of pride and accomplishment, along with sorrow and a bit of fear, radiating off of his teacher. 'I've surpassed him' N`1 realized with stark fear. 'There's nothing for him to teach me anymore.' "You've always been a good student N`1. I'll be proud to see you off."

…

These parting words ran through N`1's head as he waited in the shuttle. The shuttle itself hummed with energy, ready for takeoff. Once the Dylan had arrived he would have to take them through the tunnel and set the delay spell to collapse the opening on the other end and return.

Easy.

But N`1 had never done something like this before. He could get them trapped in limbo again, or turned into quantum zombies, or left as irradiated corpses. There where billions of ways the whole gamble could go wrong, and if anything happened to the pilot or Dylan then it would be on his head. Assuming he had a head after this. Qwan had his faith in N`1, but he couldn't help but wonder if Qwan had misplaced it.

N`1 just hoped that he didn't mess up too much.

A rapping on the door frame brought N`1 out of his stupor. Dylan stood in the passage, smirking.

"So you're a demon. You don't look like much." Dylan tilted his head.

N`1 chuckled quietly. "I don't do I. You probably don't think that I can bring us into and out of the portal, do you?"

Dylan sat down. "No, you don't look like you could do that for a spider. But we have to hope for the barking best, don't we."

N`1 brought his palm up, a few sparks of magic flickering from it. "Hope; confidence, optimism, self-assurance. Yes, I guess that's all we can do" Looking from his palm to Dylan. The boy edged a little from the flying sparks.

"You don't like magic?" N`1 shouldn't have asked, but he was curious.

Dylan shook his head. "Not magic, just fire. I… um… well, I don't like it at all, let's just leave it there."

N`1 curled his hand into a fist squelching the sparks in it. "If you say so Dylan." Dylan twitched at the name.

"Please… just call me Mister Sharp, N`1. Military formalities and all that clart."

"Um yes, clart. Dylan if you can keep a secret…"

Sigh. "Anything demon."

N`1 looked at his feet. "Do you really think that we can do this? Get you back to your dimension, I mean."

Dylan smiled, a simple gesture that held a great deal of sincerity. "Of course. We wouldn't be here if you thought you couldn't pull use though."

The two sat silently for a moment. Then…

The com crackled. "Prepare for takeoff."

**A/N: Short, compared to everything else. Don't worry about the next chapter. This is the part where things get cool. I'm also considering a profile pic. Can't choose between ponies or Deryn. Ponies. Deryn. Ponies. Deryn. Ponies! Deryn!**

**And with Christmas coming along, I have a treat for you, the reader. I'll release a drabble (maybe two) and a chapter.**


	9. Chapter 9

**Chapter 9**

"**Into the Breach"**

**A/N: I like these author's notes, they let me vent a little. With Christmas well and truly here, I would like to spoiler my tale a little bit. This is exactly midway through the story. Yep, I'm aiming for eighteen chapters. Plus a credits scene. And maybe some outtakes.**

**And on another note: I'm sorry for the late release on the 19th; my computer had that virus that slipped past Microsoft's anti-virus program. It's fixed now, but word had to be deleted in the reboot. Consider story on unofficial hiatus for now. **

**Merry Hanukwanzamas.**

Deryn listened to the rumble of the engines. She would be home, soon. All she needed to do was forfeit her memories of this alternate universe.

'_Yeah, like there's anything worth remembering about this place.'_ The entire time she had been in the fairy universe she had, in no particular order; A) been blown up, B) been told she was a barking loon, C) had gotten kidnapped by a raving ninny, D) argued with and been interrogated by mythological creatures and, E) had a dream where she had been attacked by a male version of herself. It made no sense at all and was even less of a helpful experience in life. So Deryn was glad to let these particular thoughts go.

Holly's voice came out of the intercom. "Nearing temporal anomaly Alpha Alpha 001, bearing east at one hundred forty knots. We're almost there Dylan."

Deryn flinched at the name, and then silently kicked herself. In her dream the boy who had attacked her had called himself Dylan. But it was only a _dream_ she had had from nearly being turned into dark smear on the ground.

'_Or was it?_' the small part of Deryn's mind hinted. And was it Deryn imagination or did the voice sound a little deeper, a little more masculine than hers. Deryn shook her head, ignoring the traitorous fear that welled up inside her. She had not been chosen to lead a Spec. Ops mission in Constantinople because she was a good nurse. She had been chosen for her bravery.

N`1 started muttering under his breath, too fast for Deryn to make out what he was saying exactly. He seemed to be weaving some sort of spell to- Deryn cut herself off. That was just stupid.

'_Occam's Razor. The simplest explanation is usually the answer._' Deryn flinched again at the voice, then looked at N`1. He was still muttering under his breath. He didn't speak, did he?

'_Sort of. It's hard to explain, but I'm letting you read my thoughts. Just wait a minute while I finalize the energy field. I don't want to end up a smear on the walls of reality.' _N`1's thoughts disappeared from Deryn's head, who simply wondered if she had read his thoughts. Probably, if everything she had heard was true. Deryn had gotten an ear in for Gnomish, but had only learned a few of the words and none of the swears. She knew she would forget this when she was back on the Leviathan, but didn't really care. Not much use learning a language that no one else knew.

The engines changed tone, before climbing in pitch to a high whine. The air seemed to hum with some weak electricity. Deryn wouldn't have been surprised if she had opened her mouth and breathed lightning. N`1's horns began to glow blue, before he looked up from the mutterings. His eyes were a deep electric blue.

"Testing, testing, one two three, don't call me Shirley. Can you hear me?" N`1 didn't move his mouth, but it sounded like he was speaking regardless. Deryn decided to try.

"I wouldn't have called you Shirley one way or the other." She didn't move her mouth, but she heard her voice all the same.

"Who's Shirley?" It was Holly's voice, clear and high. Deryn still couldn't believe that women could act as soldiers and policemen here, but she figured Holly was an exception to that rule. She had told Deryn that she had joined LEPrecon (what a coincidence) after her mum had died. The specifics were cloudy, but they were good enough for Deryn to tell her that her da was dead too. Small barking worlds.

"Movie character, from Airplane!. I lent you that one didn't I?" N`1 didn't seem to notice Deryn's own recollections, instead focusing on Holly.

Suddenly a jolt rocked the shuttle.

"Holly, what was that?" N`1 went from conversational to panicked on a dime. Deryn could understand why. With dimension hopping, everything had to be carefully calculated.

"Just a cloud. You should see this, it's amazing." Holly didn't seem so awed, but Deryn was curious. She wanted to see what was outside.

No sooner than thought was formed did it become deed. Suddenly Deryn could see as though the walls weren't there. The trio was flying though a hurricane of blue lightning.

Holly pulled at her controls. The shuttle rose over a bank of mean looking clouds. Deryn looked down… and saw Dylan. The boy kept pace with the shuttle, screaming something over the roar of thunder.

"_I could change you Deryn. Just one word and everything is there, you're a boy. Come on, this is my last offer."_

Deryn waved sarcastically and then looked at a cloud formation that looked like a bird. She liked being a girl, thank you very barking much.

Suddenly the bird-cloud was too close. Holly wrenched the controls and forced the shuttle towards what looked like a clear patch. But the clouds were racing them. They would hit them either way.

"Brace yourselves!" Holly both shouted and thought. The shuttle plowed into the cloud. An all the occupants saw was black.

Deryn blinked. Where did everything go? Where were Holly and N`1? _What just happened?_

"She bloody crashed, that's what she did." Deryn scowled and turned around. Dylan had caught up with her and looked and sounded like he had run a mile. "So have you made a decision about my proposition yet?" Deryn turned on her heel and walked away.

"You little…" Dylan was making an obvious effort to not swear at Deryn. "Where are you going? We're in the middle of a barking storm!"

"Go away." Deryn kept walking, ignoring his protests. She was leaving in the direction that she was sure the shuttle had been going.

"Blisters, how daft can you be. I could save you and your career and you just keep walking." Dylan sounded exhausted, but the undercurrent of dark rage was filling his voice.

"Go. Away. Now." Deryn bit the words off one by one. For a moment everything was quiet. Then…

"I could lead you home."

Deryn spun, shocked. Dylan looked on at her. "Just say the word and your back in the shuttle. No ones to be the wiser." Dylan put on his best I'm sincere face. To her credit, Deryn didn't believe him for a moment, before turning again and looking at the darkness around her.

"Which way are they?"

Dylan was at her elbow grinning ear to ear. "Just straight ahead, my dear body sister." He tried to take Deryn's arm, but the look Deryn sent him was enough to bring him up short. Deryn looked forward and, surprise, surprise, a tunnel had opened up in front of the pair. "I drive." It was all Dylan had to say then.

Suddenly Deryn was racing down the corridor at a breakneck pace. Visions flinted past her with the air as she felt as though her soul would be ripped from her body should she hit anything. The air dragged at her as she felt herself beginning to pass out. Pain coursed through her. Her heart thudded as though to fight death. The air was rent with ice, and poor Deryn was the icebreaker.

Then, just as suddenly as it had started, it stopped. Deryn was sitting in her seat in the shuttle, but couldn't see though the walls anymore. N`1's spiel of magic was winding down. Holly would be flying, whether or not she could see her. The shudders that had plagued the ship had subsided.

But something was wrong! Deryn couldn't put her finger on it, but it seemed like she wasn't right anymore. The feeling of falling perpetuated. Then she remembered what Dylan had said to her. It was an infinitesimal memory, but it was there. She knew what had happened. And she knew who had caused it.

'_You_!' She screamed in her mind. '_You've made me… made me… a-a boy!'_

Dylan chuckled. _'No, I've made us a boy. Can't you see? Now I shall be free and you will be the lie, the trapped one, the one yearning to be free.'_

Deryn tried to scream, but Dylan was creeping into her mind. _'Course, I can't just relegate you to an alternate personality like me. But I know someone who can.'_

N`1 had unbuckled and was walking towards them.

"We're going to send you down to your ship now that we're out of the tunnel. But I need to take care of your memories first." Deryn tried to tell him no, tried to tell him that she was really a girl and that they needed to go back through the tunnel, but Dylan had taken control of her mouth.

"Well, get on with it." Deryn silently gasped at the fact that Dylan had high jacked her body, but now N`1 was speaking.

"You are Dylan Sharp." N`1 words were laced the powerful Mesmer. Suddenly Deryn felt herself as though she were in a small room. It only took one second to realize what N`1 had done. She wasn't Deryn Sharp anymore. Now Dylan had her body.

"You have never met a fairy." Deryn felt as though a flaming sword had gone through her. N`1 was trying to remove all of the memories of the fairy folk from Deryn's mind. And her along with them.

"You did not go through a dimensional rift." Another sword. Another memory gone. But Deryn still thought that she remembered the People. Perhaps because she was the one being forced to forget, not Dylan. Memories of memories.

"You have never met a human named Juliet Butler," A third sword.

"You have never met a human named Domovoi Butler," a blade, and more pain now. Deryn knew it would stop soon. There was only one more memory left…

"You have never met a human named Artemis Fowl." The final sword seemed to be pushed into her heart. Deryn hung there, suspended in the small room that had become her prison, suspended, in the small room where she would be forgotten, suspended, by swords that were words.

And suddenly she was looking up at Alek, and Volger, and Newkirk. She was back on the Leviathan!

"Dylan, is that really you?" And there was such genuine concern in his voice that Deryn meant to reply that yes, it was her, and that she was back, and whole, and hearty. What she wanted to do was kiss Alek, to reach up and press her lips to the daft prince's, and to sit there and tell him the truth, even if it meant that she could never fly again, because she would have him.

'_Tut tut tut. That just won't do Mister Sharp.'_ And as Deryn felt herself fading away, Dylan turned back to the body and said;

"What do you think you daft prince?"

Deryn died screaming.

…

Alek was on dorsal. Where else would he have been. The Minotaur rolled sanguinely past the Leviathan, as though to herald hope that Dylan would be found on this day. Alek seriously doubted it. The same country side passed beneath him that had refused to yield Deryn almost seven days ago. The crew would be holding the funeral tomorrow, in honor of the Middy that no one knew was a girl.

Except maybe Jaspert. He would certainly know if his brother was a girl (Alek had come to the conclusion that Dylan and Jaspert were siblings and not actually cousins). But Alek was hesitant to ask Jaspert if Dylan was a girl, because, if he was wrong then he would be written off as raving, and if he was right, then Dylan's secret would be exposed. And that just wouldn't do.

Oddly Jaspert had been rather quiet during the trip to and from Moscow. He had avoided talking to Alek, the crew, and even the boffins; Vlad, Bergheim and Bergheim's assistant Theo, hadn't managed to get him out of his slump. He just wanted to be left alone.

Anyway, Jaspert had left for the Minotaur when it had come into sight, so that left Alek with no one to talk to besides Newkirk. Well, almost no one. Theodore Black, Bergheim's assistant, was a little older then Alek, but enjoyed a long argument over the tactical superiority of walkers verses fabricated animals, and was perfectly aware of courtly proceedings even though he came from a common English background. He was a fine Darwinist in Alek's book, which was more than could be said for the Boffins.

Bergheim wasn't one for conversation, and spent most of his time in his room, tinkering with the various equipment needed to fabricate an animal. Alek could have sworn that Bergheim was playing with electricity, as sometimes small flickers of blue light danced from under his doorframe. What time he did spend outside was usually in the company of Doctor Erasmus, Doctor Barlow, or Vlad.

Vladimir himself seemed to be drinking vodka that wasn't completely filtered, if you catch my drift. Alek lost count of the number of times he would see Vlad murmuring, only to stop when (if) he realized he had company. Otherwise he would quietly go on long tracts about human philosophy and ethics, as though they had little meaning besides an obstacle in a long road littered with them. It was more than a little unnerving.

The rest of the Russian complementary crew were enjoying themselves on the Leviathan. They worked harder than most of the crew and seemed to need to wear less of an outfit to stay warm. It was lost on Alek how they did it, but they managed. Anyway, Alek did know that it would be a long time before he had to return to the political stage.

His refusal of the hand of Maria Romanov had spread fast through Moscow. By the time the Leviathan left berth, Russia had begun to wonder what was going through his mind. Did he want the war to continue? But what Alek feared greater was Volgers disapproval. If the Count had figured out Dylan's secret, then he would probably put two and two together and assume that Dylan and Alek's relation was less then innocent. Alek wouldn't put it past him. He had begun to wonder if Dylan had had any feelings for him.

Alek's thoughts were cut off by the pounding of feet and the panting of breath. Looking farther down the spine, he saw two figures sprinting towards the Endeavor, dodging hydrogen sniffers and crewmen. It only took a moment for Alek to recognize Jules and Verne. The pair had stayed on the Leviathan since Moscow and had been mostly relaxed for the trip back. Now both seemed to throw any pretense of ease in favor of action. Alek was at a loss to know why until he heard the climbing roar of engines.

Alek spun, and watched frozen as a biplane dived from the clouds that perpetually shrouded the sky. An iron cross was painted in front of the forward gunner. The pilots were invisible from the distance Alek was at. But the intention looked clear. They were dive-bombing the Leviathan.

Crew raced to man the guns, a few firing before abruptly stopping. Crewmen stared at the descending German plane, almost unable to comprehend the sight. Alek tried to looked away, but found he couldn't. The sight of his impending doom mystified him. And just as suddenly as he had assured himself that the biplane would destroy the Leviathan, he assured himself that the pilots meant him no harm. That they had something important for him.

The plane began to tilt upward. It slowed well below stall speed, but kept flying. The forward gunner was reaching for something. Pulling what looked like a duffel bag from in front of his seat he waited for the Leviathan to directly beneath him. The moment he threw the bag, Alek new two things; One, the pilot and gunner were NOT going to harm the ship, and Two, the duffel bag was actually Midshipmen Dylan A. Sharp.

Alek was already sprinting his best when Dylan crashed onto the spine. A few crewmen had already reached Dylan, but Alek still tried to wake her up. "Dylan, Dylan, wake up."

Newkirk shoved through the growing crowd. "Blisters, those Germans sure didn't want him did they?" Newkirk looked like he wanted to kiss Dylan. Alek immediately shoved that thought from his head. Newkirk couldn't know.

Dylan suddenly coughed and spluttered "Barking spiders". These were the most beautiful word Alek had ever heard. But something was wrong. It didn't sound like Dylan was talking. It sounded…wrong.

"Dylan, is that really you?"

Dylan look at Alek, and for the fleetest of seconds, Alek felt like he was falling into Dylan's eyes. Then Dylan said;

"What do you think you daft prince?" Then Dylan coughed blood and fainted.

"Doctor!" a crewman shouted. Several crewmen pulled off their coats and made a rudimentary stretcher. Alek scrambled to follow. He barely registered that Count Volger had followed him. Or that most of the crew that had been on Dorsal at the time was also following. And he didn't notice that Jules and Verne had left.

Dylan was laid down in Dr. Busk's infirmary. As a crewmember related the strange arrival (which everyone seemed to take at face value), the good doctor made a preliminary diagnosis. "Broken ribs. We'll have to check for bruising. Get me some scissors." This almost stopped Alek's heart.

"You can't do that doctor." Alek tried not to give too much away, but could tell that Busk wouldn't believe him. Or stop, even if Alek told him about Dylan's secret.

"And why bloody can't I, your highness? One of my shipmates is hurt and I intend to save him." Dr. Busk pulled a pair of gloves from his cabinet. "It would be best if you leave." This Dr. Busk addressed to the crowd that had followed them.

"It's important you don't." That was the best Alek could come up with. It wasn't good enough for Busk.

"And why is it so important, eh boy?"

"Because… because…"

"Because you don't need to, Doctor."

Alek looked around Busk, and saw, to equal parts horror and relief, Dylan. Relief because Dylan was moving and looked okay. Horror because Dylan was taking off her shirt.

"Dylan, what are you doing? Are you mad?" Alek could barely speak. Dylan was going to willingly show a fair part of the crew proof that she wasn't a boy. And she didn't seem to care.

"Doing: proving that I'm fine. Mad: not in the slightest." And with that Dylan pulled off her undershirt and showed the crew her chest.

Her flat, muscular, bruise free chest.

That was obviously male.

Alek's mouth dropped open. _'I was so sure…'_ It seemed that his muteness was echoed by the crew. It was a full ten seconds until Dr. Busk's medical training kicked in.

"No bruising, no hemorrhages, I don't see any scratches. Um… may I?"

"Sure." Dylan seemed to have no compunctions to being medically inspected in front of a big chunk of the crew, who to their credit were looking rather uncomfortable. Alek figured that that was because they had been expecting massive damage, and were unnerved by the lack of so much of a scratch.

Dr. Busk worked fast, inspecting Dylan's ribs for bruising cracks and breaks. Finding none, he simply said; "Stay the night. You'll need to remain here in case one of your ribs does decide to break." Retiring with that lame joke, Dr. Busk made to leave the room and inform the captain, an action only partially inhibited by the crush of soldiers in the door.

Dylan continued to stare, smirking, at the crew who continued to stare, mouths agape, at him. Until Dylan said;

"Is this some sort of peep show?" And with that the crew dispersed. Except Alek. He stayed behind to talk to the friend he thought he had figured out. _'I guess that she - no, he, now, still- didn't have anything to hide then.'_ It seemed so weird to look at someone you had thought was a girl, only to find out he really was a boy. This made it even more confusing for you if they were already pretending to be male.

Alek cleared his throat. "So what happened? Did the Germans try to torture you?" 'Like they would'.

Dylan chuckled. "I don't know. I can't remember a single thing about the time I was gone. I was just here, in a Huxley, and the next I was there, on the spine. Did I miss anything?"

Alek sat down on his friend's bed. Dylan still hadn't put his shirt back on, which was still unnerving. But he didn't seem to mind being shirtless. "You've been gone for about six days. We searched for you for two days, than we were attacked by the Herkules-"

"That old thing, eh. You'd think the Germans would wise up and realize that those don't work on an airship."

"-with a tesla cannon mounted on it."

Dylan didn't comment, just nodded."

"We left for Moscow, where we picked up two boffins, then we came back, and you found us. Amazing, right?"

Dylan chuckled. "Wow, I wish I could have been there, it sounded so cool."

"We also picked up two, I think they called themselves hitchhikers, that seemed to travel a lot. They had a plane with flaming wings."

"Wow, where are they?" Dylan didn't seem particularly moved by the fact of there being a plane with flaming wings, but Alek didn't bother with that bit of impassiveness. Something more important had come over his mind from the statement.

'_Where are they?' _

…

The answer to this question was 'above the Leviathan'. Verne watched the airbeast roll away from her and Jules as the Endeavor shadowed the fairy shuttle towards the portal. They had a small window of opportunity here and could only wait so long. But they also had a plan.

Said plan was was almost immediately abandoned when they entered the time stream and were detected by N`1.

"Of all the rotten luck" Murmured Jules.

"Well… plan B?" suggested Verne.

"Plan B." Confirmed Jules.

"Plan B!" A wise man once said '_You just ruined a perfectly good batch of my shine.'_ He also said '_When you're flying by the seat of your pants, nothing sounds as official as Plan B'. _

Plan B, in this case, turned out to be diving straight into a fairy camp and trying to grab a single human at insanely high speeds. This single human had numerous aliases and pseudonyms, but most commonly went by the name of Artemis Fowl.

Jules opened up the throttle and high-balled out of the tunnel. The air rattled the Endeavor with a passion. Jules forced the joysticks forward and leveled towards a small clearing. A speck on the ground blossomed into a full sized human. Jules opened the cockpit shield and slowed down.

Artemis never knew what hit him.

Jules locked his arm onto the flailing boy, tugging him up over the rim of the cockpit. He would have only minutes before the LEP made their way through the portal after them. But with luck, the universe on the other side was still slowing down, relative to the current universe. Luck had other ideas though.

Artemis struggled against Jules's grip. Just as they reached the portal Artemis seized his chance and made a grab for the crystal. Maybe it was how Jules curled over the gem protectively, or how it glowed brighter as they neared the rift, but Artemis knew it had to be something important. So he concentrated on taking it. Jules barely noticed.

But Verne did. She threw her weight against Jules, smothering the crystal in his stomach and trapping Artemis's hand with it. The struggling trio hurtled into the portal, careening madly. Verne recognized the shift in balance that signaled falling, but still tried to stop Artemis from ruining their plan.

She didn't succeed.

…

The body floated through the ether. It could see. It could hear. But it was not aware beyond itself.

It was empty.

Or very nearly so. It was a shell. It had nothing in it but a strange half soul, not its own. It recognized the intruder, but could not fight it. So it ignored the soul and the soul ignored it, as the body was unable to move, unable to leave.

But it could feel. It felt its true soul, distant and dormant. It could sense its struggle, its urge to be reunited with its body. But it could not come to it.

Until something _hit_ it.

The body felt the impact, as the false soul did too. They twisted, but would not break. They felt the connection, and knew. They knew where it was gone.

And they followed.

**A/N: Okay, just to clarify, Deryn did not get a sex change. She was forced into a male body by her sociopathic male alter. Just trying to keep this PG-13 okay. Hope you like the drabbles (if I get to them). See you next week. Bonus point's if you can ID the soul.**

**L.W.**


	10. Chapter 10

**Chapter 10**

**Deryn Demented**

**A/N: Not demented in that sense, just very close to it. I'm unsure of when I'm releasing this chapter as of the writing (Buffer and all that) but since I'm releasing this now I do hope you will enjoy the chapter. **

**Merry (late) Hanukwanzamas.**

Red sky like blood lakes.

Black earth, scorched and dead to all.

Lost iron hands, bladed.

Orion smirked with Artemis's face. It was a rare treat that Artemis would let him compose a haiku, even though he was supposed to be bringing them closer. But a thought lingered; what did he mean by iron hands, bladed? True he had pulled the poem out of nowhere, but still!

Orion's unspoken question was answered a moment later when a long-sword fell from the sky. Orion even didn't blink when it buried itself in the ground next to his head (though Artemis screamed). Orion chuckled at the real boy's displeasure. Did he not realize that with blade and foe they would be talked about in legend of this place?

Orion was still somewhat mad.

And speaking of foes, the air pirate that had captured Artemis was pulling himself from the dust not feet from them. Orion grabbed the blade by the hilt, ignored the fact that the hilt was the wrist of what looked like a metallic, prosthetic arm severed from below the elbow and, screaming like a banshee, charged the pirate.

Jules (who else in this story dresses like a pirate?) saw this coming before he had even pulled himself up. He waited for Orion to come within five feet of him, before bringing him arms up to defend himself. An orange, transparent blade blossomed from beneath his sleeve.

Swish.

Jules's blade met Orion's head on, sparks flying vehemently. "Whoa Don, lay off. I am not an adversary." He brought the sword up over his head, blocking Orion's down swing. "And we really don't have time for this."

Orion blocked a possible thrust. "Would you be able to stop me?" Then he lunged again.

…

Angeline Fowl was a kind, loving women. She wouldn't hurt a fly. Unless said fly was hurting her little Arty. Then neither hell nor high water would stop her.

This was an outlook that had led her to be strapped down in a super-sonic shuttle, piloted by a pixie, her head constantly being banged against the roof, and her not minding at all. Her thoughts were on her son, or rather sons. Angeline had long accepted Orion as a part of her Artemis's personality, even acknowledging him as one of her children. He had the care free nature and explosive imagination that she had wanted Artemis to have. But even more importantly, Orion loved her and looked up to her like she was his mother.

Another bang on the head brought her out of the rabbit hole and back to reality. Doodah Day, her pilot, was a semi-reformed criminal that currently worked as a bounty hunter along with Mulch Diggums, a not-nearly-as-reformed criminal that had, once upon a time, robbed Fowl manor. But Doodah's major talent lay behind the wheel. Give him anything with a motor and he could drive it (so claimed his business card). And so far this had proven true. Doodah had yet to crash the shuttle he had borrowed from the LEP. But Angeline wouldn't hold it against him if he did leave a few scratches. She just wanted her son back.

In the intervening time between now and Artemis's discovery of the wormhole, Angeline had worked herself into the protective mother mode that she hoped would convince Artemis to let her take him back to Haven. She hoped she could pull it off. Maybe if she could talk to Holly first, she would be able to convince Artemis to come home. But she would be hard pressed to pull this off. Artemis was so much like his father, so completely focused on his own goals that he would leave everything else in the dust.

But that was why Angeline loved her husband and son so much. Men that wouldn't let anything stand in there way, that wouldn't take the world lying down had always been what she had yearned for. And yet… Orion was content to live in a land of fantasy, unfretted by the world around. And Angeline loved that about him too. Maybe it was sympathy for him, (she had been mad once) but he seemed like the sort of son she had always wanted, but never had. If only Artemis had just a little of Orion's imagination.

Doodah brought the shuttle into a broad turn. "There you are ma'am; you should see what your son stirred up out here."

Angeline pressed her face against the glass window. An enormous encampment spread out beneath them, with five huge towers pumping blue electricity into the air. Most shuttles were grounded, though Angeline could spot one that was descending towards the main area. Doodah angled the ship towards it, preparing a landing maneuver, when Foaly's face popped up on the screen.

"You do not have clearance here, turn around and land somewhere else." Foaly only seemed to recognize Doodah after he ordered their landing. It may have had something to do with the text screen that appeared next to his face when he was finished speaking. "Doodah, how did you find out about this operation? This is supposed to be covert."

Angeline put herself into the screen. "Sorry Foaly, but I needed a pilot. I'm hopeless with these ship's, there too technologically advanced for my feeble muddy mind." Angeline hoped that ego stoking would smooth over the fact that they had taken the ship illegally, or at least help Foaly ignore the fact she knew what was happening at all. She wasn't disappointed in either case.

Foaly chuckled and brushed a screen from his console. "I've cleared a landing zone for you and you ship Doodah. You'll need to take off fast if you want to beat the force though. We're almost done here, just need to get the go ahead and the status of our little demon friend." A blinking red dot appeared on the sky, overlaid by a holographic of the area. "Just put her down there and then scram, okay. Trubs'll probably have a heart attack if he finds out you took his personal shuttle."

Angeline honestly didn't feel guilty for the grand-theft-fairy. This was her son they were talking about. "Just say the word Foals. We're gone." The hologram closed, but not before Foaly had opened his mouth to retort and just ahead of him actually saying anything. As holograms had the slight problem of leaving an after image, the effect was rather comical. Angeline wasn't in the mood to laugh though. If anything happened to her son, then there would be hell to pay.

Doodah brought the shuttle low over the landing zone. Another shuttle was also coming down above them. Angeline hoped that no one on board would try to stop her from getting Artemis. Doodah put her down with a thud. Angeline only stayed long enough to peck him on the cheek and transfer the necessary funds to his account, before disembarking. The other ship's gangway swung open with a hiss of pneumatics. An elf and a demon charged out.

Angeline barely stopped herself from pumping her fist in triumph. The elf leading the demon was Holly.

"Holly! Holly!" Angeline shouted over to the racing captain, Holly cast a glance over at her and nearly tripped over her own feet. N`1 plowed straight into her, but only succeeded in bouncing off Holly's back.

"Angeline?" Holly looked a little stunned to see the Fowl matriarch in the midst of the Belarusian wilderness. But she got over it fast. "Something came out of the portal. N`1 thinks it wants to attack us."

N`1 pulled himself up out of the sod. "Hmm, Sod. Dirt, earth, mud, soil .It wants something, but I'm not sure what. Whatever it was, it got through the fairy defenses we set up so I'm assuming it's familiar with our technology." I'm rather sure that standard procedure would be to let it blow up several ship's before engaging in a mad chase after it, followed by a hostage situation."

Angeline paled while Holly glared at N`1. "That's not standard procedure. Did someone swap a mudman action novel for your field book?"

N`1 chuckled. "No it's just how you do it all the time." Angeline was really worried now.

"Where's Artemis? I should find him." The point of her son still being in the camp snapped Holly out of whatever lull she had fallen into. Grabbing N`1 by the wrist she half-pulled, half-dragged the warlock behind her. Angeline was barely able to keep up. Holly brought her up to speed on the way.

"We found someone who fell through the portal just before we were attacked by Opal Koboi"- Angeline hissed at the name of the pixie that had hijacked her body, however unbecoming it was. - " Who snuck intoit. We haven't heard anything from her yet, but it seems that she broke herself out of prison to help. We returned the mudboy to the other side of the portal, but something followed us back in. N`1 barely detected them. It might be Opal and an accomplice. They're here somewhere."

Holly, Angeline and N`1 cleared a small patch of forest into an open field. Nothing seemed to be happening here, except that an official looking shuttle was purring on the other side, and a youth had just exited it and was making his way across the field. "Artemis!" Angeline shouted gleefully. Her son was safe.

Artemis froze. "Mother, er, mum. What are you doing here? Aren't you supposed to be-" . What Misses Fowl was supposed to be was lost to the ages, as, in a truly blink of an eye moment, something massive and green appeared and scooped up Artemis. N`1 did in fact miss it, while Holly was lost on how it had just happened. Angeline went from quietly cheering to loudly screaming.

"Artemis! ARTEMIS! NOOOOOOO!" Angeline raced after the retreating plane, but had barely made it halfway across the meadow when something that was either a very tall car or very short freight train hit her and overtook her. It was Butler.

"Artemis, grab onto the nearest handhold and hang on, we're coming." Butler was moving with a vitality and force that seemed inhuman for his aged frame. Blatant professionalism overrode any possible sense of fear or panic. For the time being, of course though. Butler had a plan.

He had one of Artemis's plans, which had been formulated for the possibility of an aerial kidnapping. Of course, said plan had been formulated on the assumption that the kidnapper would be a rather disgruntled pixie, so Butler would need to improvise. Thank god for years of training.

"Holly, retrieve the shuttle you took. Our priority is to figure out where Artemis has been taken to. Once we know that-."

"I'm coming with you." Angeline interjected so quickly that Butler failed to stop her. So he took the simplest course of action, a course he would later claim had been his only option to protect her and, by extension, her son. He put his hand on her shoulder and knocked her out.

…

Holly slapped her forehead as Misses Fowl slumped into the earth. She wouldn't have hurt her like that. She would have stunned her with her neutrino. But that was beside the point. Artemis was in danger and Angeline would have been a hindrance. But why did she have to have been here at all?

Of course Misses Fowl was in no state to actually answer the question, but Holly could imagine the answer. 'Just find my son!' She knew Angeline well enough for the answer to pop into her head. And she knew what Artemis's response would be. 'Get her out of there!' But he wasn't really here so she wouldn't have to listen to him. Though she might need to listen to- nope, just kidding, she certainly wouldn't listen to her commander. Problem was, she would need to get around him first.

"Short, if you even think about going after Fowl, I'm going to put you under arrest. And court martial you." This particular exchange was happening about two minutes later, when Holly had managed to retrieve her shuttle and stuff Butler and N`1 into it. But in an age of plants being able to double as cameras and time travel being forcibly illegal, it hadn't been long for Commander Trouble Kelp to find them in the air.

"I can't believe that you have gotten yourself so entangled with this boy. Do you have some sort of… uh…" Kelp glanced off-screen. A slight whinny might have been heard, along with the words "Stockholm Syndrome". "Well?" Trouble gave Holly his best 'You are dead' look that completely mostly almost didn't hide the 'Please be okay' look. Holly really didn't like jerking her commander around, but only on the weekends and at crunch-ball matches when they were off duty. The rest of the time, she did what she knew was right. And saving Artemis was definitely in the right.

"I can't just let him disappear Commander. He's the only one who's managed to figure out the page. If he vanishes, the knowledge goes with him. Besides, his kidnappers are probably in league with Koboi, who's still in the tunnel. Just imagine how happy the council will be if we apprehend her and her doppelganger. At least one of them is still on our end of the portal." Holly knew that she was grasping for straws here, but she had a chance. Trouble took the bait.

"She'll definitely placate the council members, but you'll still be on the wrong end of a dwarf if you mess this up Captain. And Holly…" Trouble fixed Holly with his 'Please be okay' look, full force. "Don't mess this up." The transmission ended.

"Your boyfriend sounds a little upset." If anyone else had said this Holly was sure she would have dropped kicked them, but coming from N`1 it was a statement of fact. "You really need to try and not rile him up so much. Your give him the heart attack everyone was betting Julius would have." Holly grunted indiscriminately, trying not to think about her one time boyfriend. If he ever found out about the kiss she and Artemis had shared he would have her out of the force faster than you could say D'Arvit. He would put two and two together and get three, thinking she was in love with Artemis.

Holly snorted. Her and the mud boy. When the sun froze, maybe.

Right?

"Holly are you alright? You're breathing funny." N`1 hadn't missed the snort.

"It was just an old joke, N`1. You wouldn't get it." Holly figured that maybe she would try spending sometime down in the gym to get the mud boy out of her head when the air turned turbulent around them. She brought the controls back as smooth as she could, aiming the nose into the tunnel. By now she had the entire process memorized and repeatable. Open mind, check. Wide open eyes, check. Tunnel of light, check. She was good to go.

Butler was a different story. He had never been through the tunnel, and while the absolute concentration needed wasn't a problem, the open mind was. Opening his mind and letting N`1 in would bolster the mental shield N`1 had constructed around the shuttle. But if he didn't manage it, he could easily slip into the time stream, lost forever. Or N`1 could force his way in and anchor him here with them. Holly hoped it wouldn't come down to that. She remembered the last time someone had forced their way into Butlers mind. He had had a heart attack when he had managed to beat the Mesmer.

The tunnel wreathed around the shuttle. Holly had been in the time tunnel and could have sworn on the Book that it was nowhere near as impressive as this version. Vast, blue and silver clouds encircled trillions of small pores, each leading to a different universe. Lightning phased between the vapors, illuminating the strange lands that stood beyond imagination. Reality was a subjective thing here. Holly figured that if she had to come up with a name other than the Rip, it would have to be Fanfiction dot net.

N`1's mind touched on hers, alerting her to the fact that he and Butler were still there. Holly refocused, bringing the shuttle over a bank of clouds. The tunnel was certainly far tamer then when she had ferried Dylan across. It was like something about him made the tunnel angry…

Holes in reality opened and closed around them, showing titans clashing, families meeting, hopes risen and hopes dashed. It was an image that was unmatched in the universe. Holly hoped that when she (and that was when, not if) saved Artemis, he could see this too. Holly quietly registered the irony of the statement. Her exe-kidnapper needed saving from trans-dimensional abductors. Well, they could appreciate the hilarity when they were home, safe and sound.

A particular puncture in the fabric of existence looked to be opening in front of the shuttle. Holly directed the aircraft through, thanking the gods that with N`1 on board that they didn't get some sort of energy discharge that would follow opening the portal. The crews of the airships beneath them would be on them faster than a dwarf on freshly turned clay. Not that they could see them though. Shielded from visible and infrared scanning, Holly doubted that the Darwinist would find them if they knew the fairies were there.

The spine of the flying whale… Gahh, Holly couldn't even think straight looking at the damned thing. The harnessed whale was an aberration of nature herself, a blight on the world that it was birthed from. It contributed nothing to the natural order of things, just parodied them and the earths clean beauty. It was disgusting.

Holly swung the shuttle high over the beast. The heat from the engines wasn't much, but it was enough to ignite the hydrogen in the animal if they came too close. Butler came to Holly's shoulder. "Do you see them? They came from here didn't they? Where are they?" Butler sounded like a concerned parent, rather a body guard with a license and training to kill. But Holly couldn't see anyone in the air.

"They're not here, and neither is Artemis." N`1 had obviously picked up on the tension and was supplying an answer. This did not go well.

"THEN WHERE ARE THEY!" Butler roared loud enough to shake the shuttle. Holly probably would have been terrified, but she was screaming to.

"How can you be so detached? This is Artemis we're talking about. He could be killed for all we know." Had Holly been looking at anyone else, they probably would have died of fright. For that matter, they would already be dead from Butlers glare. But N`1 was quietly oblivious to the extent of their rage.

"Well I would assume that they aren't too far away now, perhaps they haven't even left the time stream. So all we need to do is prepare for the encounter. We have the upper hand in this case, something I would assume that we should be able to capitalize on." Thank the god for the bluntly obvious. Butler collapsed into his seat, his unlived years showing through for once. Holly decided to take some of her anger out on the shuttle. Dragging the controls back into position she had had them in earlier, she brought the fairy-craft into a wide holding pattern and started thinking.

'We could probably try to ambush them when they get back and hand Artemis over to Koboi. It's pretty obvious that this is where Opal is… hid…ing.' Gods she was such an idiot. When she and N`1 had delivered Dylan to the Leviathan, they had left a human with knowledge of the entire fairy encampment right in the clutches of the most dangerous fairy on the planet. How had they not seen this when they were here earlier?

Holly froze mid-thought. If Opal was here, then all they needed to do was get retrieval through the portal and find her. She would never touch her Arty.

And just before the scene transitioned Holly did a mental double take. Had she just thought of Artemis as her's?

…

Orion slashed down, parried and feinted left. Jules watched him with the absolute minimal amount of interest that someone could afford to something that was trying to kill them. "Very good try, that feint was seemed genuine. You would make a great fencer Orion. Now can you stop trying to end me?"

Orion drew back, and lowered his sword. "My errant foe, I shall destroy you in the name of my love. For Holly!" Orion lunged again, only to watch as his blade nicked Jules's crow-black hair.

Jules eyed the blade with disinterest before addressing Orion. "Is the next blow also dedicated to Holly?"

Orion narrowed his eyes menacingly. "I rather doubt such fact pirate."

"Good". Jules swung his own orange blade up, connecting with Orion's sword. Electricity blossomed from the point of impact, dazzling the pair. Orion backpedaled, while Jules's blade wrapped itself around the saber. Sparks continued to flicker from the point of contact, until Jules pulled the sword from the vice. "Now will you listen to me?" Jules sounded as polite as he could manage, which was a fair bit, considering that he had just been attacked by a sword wielding lunatic.

Orion brushed the dust off of his suit before answering. "You have bested me, demon. I surrender to the lashings of your tongue."

"Thank you." Jules smiled, before thinking the sentence over and chuckling. "I'm not your enemy Orion, or the enemy of Artemis. I just need you for the moment. Here, I think that you will trust me a little better if you're armed." Jules held the sword in his gloved hand out to Orion. The mad boy eyed the pommel that looked like a wrist before snatching up his weapon. Jules raised both hands in submission. "There. I beat you, but have returned your weapon. Will you listen now?"

Artemis's alter ego gripped the blade tighter, but nodded once. Jules smiled benignly, as though they had not just been dueling furiously. "My name is Jules. I need your better half for the moment. It is of great significance to me and my friend. We won't harm you, or any of those whom you hold dear. But you are vital for us. Is that satisfactory?"

Orion thought then nodded. It could have been worse. But in his head, Artemis was shaking his head.

"Don't do it Orion. He'll kill you; he has given you nothing and will kill you." Artemis continued to shake vigorously while Orion smirked and nodded to Jules. The dimension hopper turned and began to lead the way.

Several minutes past as the two-and-a-half boys tramped in no particular direction, moving what Orion would guess as being north northeast judging from the sun. The troop was lost in their own thoughts. Jules worried for his love and friend Verne, Orion wondered if the leading man would try at any time to kill him, and Artemis pondered if he knew Jules. The odd sense of déjà vu that he had felt around Dylan was tenfold near him. Perhaps it had something to do with the time tunnel, or maybe something more, but Artemis had a feeling that Butler would have called Gut sense. Eventually he had Orion voice his concern.

"Um, excuse me Jules, but you wouldn't happen to be related to a Dylan Sharp would you?"

"No, is he someone worth meeting?" Jules was only vaguely interested, or seemed to be.

"No, just a thought." Orion kept silent for the rest of the trek. Several minutes passed as the pair trekked on, until Jules stopped dead. Orion gave the boy a bemused look, but Jules ignored, instead rummaging in his pockets for something. Finally he pulled a small container out and tossed it to Orion. Orion opened the package and pulled out what looked like a contact lens.

"Put it in." Jules suggested. "I can't look you straight in the eye if you're like that." It seemed obvious he was referring to Artemis's hazel eye. Orion complied, pressing the colored contact into his eye.

Finally the ragtag band of two young men crested a small ridge and saw their goal; a slightly steaming wreck, vaguely resembling a missile. A figure tended to the wreckage.

"Verne!" Jules called as loud as he could, which actually made Orion wince. The figure jolted to its full height, which wasn't much, and started running to the pair. Verne threw herself around her companion, while Orion looked on quizzically. Noticing the look, Jules gesture to his friend and love. "This is Verne. She is my intended." Orion kept looking at her funny.

"I thought she was a boy. Why is her name Verne?" Verne gaze Orion a death glare, while Jules barely kept himself from collapsing with mirth.

Pulling himself up from the bent over position he had laughed in Jules said, "It's a name she chose. She doesn't speak much though, so she'll ignore you mostly." Jules pointed at the ship. "The Endeavor. She's a little beat up from the landing and will need repairs, but she'll fly us out of here. Let's get to work." And with that Jules sauntered over to his baby and disappeared in a cloud of smoke and sparks. Orion stared blankly from Jules to Verne and finally started over, content to his doom as he knew nothing about mechanics.

Three hours later…

Screw driver. Orion handed Jules a screw driver. After a minute…

Ratchet. Orion handed Jules a ratchet. Barely a minute after that…

Plasma welder. Orion past Jules a hand held plasma welder. A variation of this conversation had been going on for around two and a half hours, ever since Jules remembered that Orion couldn't handle a tool if it had hit him over the head. Before that the conversation had been rather amiable and Orion learned a little. Apparently they were in the limbo of limbo, a place you could end up in if you tried to get to limbo from limbo. But he hadn't learned much else. Like whom his associates really were.

Verne didn't speak, and Jules mentioned something about her being from Honshu prefecture in japan, but Orion really didn't buy that. They were as mysterious now as when he had met them. And they didn't care. But now, after three hours they were going to be gone soon, and Orion couldn't ask for more. Jules sat up, pulled the hatch he had been working from down, and pronounced the ship charmant. They were ready to go. And then Verne screamed.

Jules and Orion looked at the lone female of the group, who was pointing skyward and shouting in what sounded like very fast Gnomish. Orion followed her finger and saw, horrifically, as a body descended from the heavens at a literally breakneck pace.

Jules took action. Flexing his fingers, a series of white, pulsing triangles tessellated from his back. The triangles shaped themselves into wings and hummed. And Jules was suddenly airborne. Orion and Verne watched, breath baited, as Jules snatched the falling body from the sky. Orion heaved a sigh of relief, but stopped when Verne glared at him.

"If anyone made it here, then that's a bad sign mud boy." And Verne sprinted off to Jules and the body.

When Orion arrived there, Jules had set the person down. Orion was just a little shocked that it was the girl in boys clothes, Dylan.

"What!" Artemis shouted in his head. He had not seen that coming. Orion barely stifled a laugh, though Artemis had come to the conclusion that even a broken clock was right twice a day.

Jules glared straight at Orion with such a fiery glare that the boy froze and took on the manner appropriate of the death bed of a dear friend.

Hopefully it wouldn't come down to that.

Jules took the girls pulse and pressed his head to her chest to check her breathing. Finally he flexed his fingers, and a yellow screen appeared in front of him. He explained to the confused Orion quietly. "Hard light projector. Anything I need, blades, wings, screens, everything's there. The ultimate tool."

Shutting the screen Jules shook his head, then peeled an eyelid open as gently as you would handle a kitten. The eyes rolled a little, tracking Jules's frame. But no iris or pupil resided in them. They were a blank, ghostly white.

Wait a minute. Orion leaned in to get a better look. Sure enough, a faint mark resided where the pupil would usually sit, a gray so light that it mascaraed as a part of the blank eye. But it was there. A small circle centered in a ring. The ring had a short line poking from the top, and three smaller ones on the bottom. Orion had never seen it before, and neither had Artemis. And apparently, neither had Jules or Verne.

Jules let the eye shut and hefted the girl over his shoulder before addressing Orion and Verne. "He will be okay. But we leave now."

**A/N: Ten down, eight to go. If you figure out the marking or just like the website joke, shoot off a review. Otherwise you can review to tell me how my writings going. Remember, this is my first story and I want to get better. Please tell me how, my faithful readers. By the time this goes up I should be all caught up. **

**And no, if you do figure it out, they won't be doing anything in the story.**

**And has anyone figured out Jules and Verne. I'm trying to be subtle here, but I might be a bit too vague. Let me know please.**

**Till next week, faithful readers.**

**L.W. **

**Ha ha, spoiler.**


	11. Chapter 11

**Chapter 11**

**Here's Dylan**

**A/N: The American Stephan king is my favorite author. I loved **_**The Shining, **_**even though every time I look at the title I always think **_**the Shin-ning **_**and****not**_** the Shine-ning. **_**I think it's just some quirk of me. Just for a little heads up, this is a short chapter. I only had one day to actually do it, so appreciate my work with some feedback. Oh and stay through the last A/N.**

Dylan had only been aware for maybe four days, and alive for less than half that, but he considered himself to be having the time of his life. These short days were the greatest he had ever experienced. He could eat potatoes and sausages and actually taste them. The bosun gave him chores to do, everything from tying knots to patrolling the spine for leaks. It was a life dejoure. But what Dylan loved the most was that he was doing it all as a boy. Not as a girl mind, but as a real, honest to goodness boy with props to prove it.

Course, most of the crew figured that he was a male, but some small minority seemed to be in the mindset that he was actually faking his manhood. Dylan had never felt anger toward some other than Deryn, but now he really understood the feeling. If he could just get his hands on one of those air guns, then… well, it was improper to harbor thoughts of malice to ones comrades. So most of the time Dylan just ignored them and they ignored him when his back was turned. Some people were just so rude. Disregarding the fact that Dylan had kidnapped someone's conscious so that he could run his own body, Dylan couldn't think of anything he had done to warrant such behavior from the crew.

'_It's probably Deryn's fault.'_ That was Dylan's reasoning of the crews actions during one particular jot of cargo assessment that he and Newkirk had been assigned to. They were being helped by Mister Rigby and a Russian attendee. The Russian- who Dylan had assumed was named Peter from his conversations with other Russians- kept sending Dylan sidelong glances and light glares, as though he had lost a bet because of him. Dylan didn't know why, so he entertained the thought that he had been betting that Deryn had been a girl, and for kicks, had bet with Newkirk and lost when Dylan had taken off his shirt.

IGNORANCE!

Anyway, Dylan was enjoying the taking inventory with Newkirk. It let him talk with his second favorite person on the ship, with the first being Alek. But it wasn't best to reflect about that now, especially with what he had planned for Alek that night.

"So this huge walker was charging straight for us and I put my knife right on his throat and shouted for the Clankers to take their best shot. Then they stopped the walker (nearly ran me over in the process), pointed their cannon at me and Alek. I called for their leader and tada- instant prisoner. What do you think?"

"Hmm, oh, yeah, great story Dylan. I wouldn't want to meet you in a dark alley." Newkirk didn't even look up from his list. Dylan took that as a compliment.

"Because I'm such a spectacular soldier, right?"

Had Newkirk looked up, he would have seen that Dylan was grinning from ear to ear. As it was, he just said, " Exactly." This was license enough for Dylan to pompously stride around the cargo hold, content in his sheer awesomeness.

After mislabeling three stores of beef as feed and confusing the tea with food for the strafing hawks, Dylan and Newkirk were dismissed for lunch by a grumbling bosun and a slightly ticked off Peter. This was Dylan favorite time of the day. Food was so underrated for people who had eaten it all their lives. Dylan had only been alive for two days and was still trying to process how anyone could manage to regard food without collapsing on their knees with thanks. At the moment Dylan was struggling with this particular urge, but so far had managed. Any stranger behavior would alert the crew to what was amiss with Dylan.

But thoughts of self-control were abolished by the smells of food. Oh food. Sight and hearing were soooo overrated when the sensations of taste, smell and feeling were available. The smells were enough to make Dylan eyes water along with his tongue. He had only had three meals since he had arrived. Lunch was still his favorite time of the day. Deryn really didn't know what she had been missing out on. Dylan scooped as much food onto his tray as he could, mixing several small quantities of everything he could find onto his plate. The sight was one to die for in his eyes.

Dylan plonked himself down on the nearest table and started in, alternating between shoveling the food down his gullet and slowly savoring the complex tastes of the various foods he had. It was an amazing feeling to taste and smell at the same time.

Newkirk finally managed to maneuver a seat next to Dylan, a feat that Dylan would have sarcastically applauded if his hands weren't full with simply moving as much mass into Dylan mouth as possible. "Mister Sharp, you're make yourself sick if you continue to eat like that." Newkirk's friendly advice was lost on Dylan, if only for two reasons; One, Dylan didn't really care, and Two, Dylan didn't mind the pain. It wasn't that he enjoyed sadistically (this was his body after all, he needed to take care of it) it was just that he liked to feel such a base feeling. Pain was as much a feeling to him as heat, or cold, or pleasure.

Dylan paused in his slow chew of a fried potato. Pleasure was one feeling he was yet to experience fully. And he had the perfect plan to remedy that.

…

Describing Deryn Sharp's feelings at the moment would have been difficult. Angry just didn't catch the scope of her reaction to being sucked into a boy's body. Neither did enraged. No Deryn A. Sharp was mad with fury. It didn't just get her goat that Dylan had managed to do it, it was the fact that she had allowed it to happen. If it hadn't been for Alek, Deryn would have stayed in the time tunnel. She really wanted to kill Dylan right now.

But blind rage wouldn't get her out of Dylan's head, and neither would screaming horrendous swearwords. So Deryn took some of her father's old advice. Stay back, observe and approach the problem rationally. Her father had drilled it into her and her brother from their childhood to until he had died. He had always been a rational man, if a little insufferable when it came down to morals.

So Deryn decided to wait awhile and see what she could do. The first order of business would be to get off the spikes that had impaled her. This had been easier thought then done. N`1 had given her a full blast of the Mesmer to completely force her to forget her memories. But having not put Dylan under the Mesmer, she had regained her memories through him. Even if he was an insufferable ninny, he was still useful in that regard.

It had taken some doing, but Deryn had eventually figured out how to remove the blades. She just had to focus on all her memories and recall them one after the other. It had been a pain to her, but eventually she had her entire memory recognized and acknowledged. The sword-words vanished without a trace. Next up was light. Deryn hadn't even thought of this though, when the lights went on in her head. Apparently in her head, thought really was deed.

But the last step in her plan would be the hardest. Now she needed to actually get out of Dylan's body. She had put a lot of mental resources into finding her way out, trying to recall a way to override the strange forces in his head, when she did something weird.

Deryn had been at the far side of the small room in Dylan's head that she called home, trying to think of a way to force her way through the walls, when a door appeared on the other side. Deryn stared at the door like it was some sort of newly fabricated beastie. It looked like a door. And if it was a door out, then…

"Well, might as well get on with it" Deryn sighed. Where had her airsense gone?

Beyond the door, Deryn had a little bit of Déjà vu. The inside of Dylan's head looked a lot like the inside of the time tunnel, but with strands of thought instead of clouds. "I've seen stranger" Deryn murmured. Meeting fairies tended to do this to a girl. But still, not all that strange when it came down to it. Maybe this was how all minds looked like. Deryn pondered this for a few minutes before deciding to do something drastic. She reached out a grasped a train of thought and held it to her face. A blur of light hummed at its core, weirdly beautiful.

Deryn tossed it to the side and started in on the thought lines. Most were just blurs, completely incomprehensible. Others were strangely placid and empty. And a few let her see out into the world. And see the madness at work.

Deryn could watch as Dylan walked, talked and lived in her life. He worked with Newkirk, ate in the mess, tied knots, and generally did whatever she would have done. He had completely taken over her life. Some of what he did made no sense at all, or just very weird sense if any. He had something planned for Alek, she could tell that much. He seemed to have also taken a liking to Dr. Barlow (Deryn couldn't wait to see the look on her face when someone pointed this out to the boffin) and really liked eating. But this wasn't what Deryn was looking for. She needed a way out.

As luck should have it, she chanced upon it when she began to move the strands away, to give her a clear path to the other strands. She didn't realized it at the time, but she had just made her way out.

Now all she needed was her body.

…

Alek walked slowly to Dylan's room, lost in thought. The young boy had requested his presence, and made a point as to not tell Count Volger. Alek wasn't sure that this was the best course, but had decided to go anyway. It was bound to be interesting, whatever Dylan wanted to tell him.

Dylan had been acting oddly since he had returned to the Leviathan. It was like he had been relishing life after he had gotten back. Maybe he did remember whatever the clankers had done to him, and was trying to tell Alek that something was wrong. Alek didn't know what to do to treat trauma, but he could comfort his friend.

Alek finally reached Dylan's door and rapped on it as quietly as possible. The door opened a crack, before flying open with nary a squeak. Dyaln smiled broadly and gestured for Alek to come in. As Alek did as he bade, Dylan closed the door and locked it. This should have set alarm bells off in Alek's head, but it didn't. Not yet. Dylan pushed him onto his bed and sat down next to him.

"Nice to see you, your princeliness. How are you doing this fine evening?" Dylan had this glint in his eyes that sent a little shiver down Alek's spine. He ignored it, though still looked away.

"Quite well, actually. But i've been worried about you Dylan. Is anything the matter?" Alek was making his best attempt to sound formal and tried to look Dylan straight in the face. He failed spectacularly. Dylan chuckled half-heartedly.

"Oh you know, nothing as bad as being kidnapped recently. I've had worse." Alek tried to look at Dylan again. The boy wore a mask of impassiveness over a face full of malice. This was when Alek got scared.

"But you've been though worse, haven't you Alek?" Alek tried not to flinch. Dylan looked at him funny, while he tried to back away. Dylan put his hand on his shoulder, freezing the movement. Alek began to wonder if Dylan had been turned into some sort of spy. If he was, then that meant… Alek tried to pull away from Dylan, fear gripping his heart. Dylan place his other arm on Alek's shoulder.

"Aleksandar…" Dylan let the name hang in the air. Alek tried again to pull away. This was it, Dylan was going to kill him. Somehow he knew that. He looked once more into the face of his former friend and saw…

"Mien Gott. Dylan… your, your eyes, how." For somehow, in the intervening days from when Dylan had returned and now, Dylan's eyes had become a strange chocolate hazel. The boy smirked.

"All the better to see you with." And then he surprised Alek, and slammed himself into his body, kissing him.

**A/N: Sorry for the short chapter, rush order this week. So no Deryn is not dead, Alek's in the dark, and Dylan has hazel eyes. See you next week.**


	12. Chapter 12

**Chapter 12**

**Flanking**

**A/N: Due to issues (Namely my education), my recent updates have been falling short of length. I will continue to update regularly and normally, every Sunday until the story is complete. In the mean time I intend to create a sweeping, novel length epic. **

**And if Lilit's a lesbian, Dylan can get a yaoi kiss. So says the law of Wester.**

**And some dirty swearing this chapter. Just a warning, kay.**

Orion forced himself into the space behind the small back seat in the Endeavor. Verne climbed into the seat in front, holding Dylan's body. Jules was quick to get in, after running a few tests on the hull and wings, and looked glad to be gone. The wings of the Endeavor blazed to glory and Orion, ever the quixotic knight, decided to ask; "Have you ever seen a dragon. You seem endowed with a breadth of vision that would grant such a sight." Artemis non-verbally groaned at Orion's grammar. Jules shrugged.

"I've only been travelling for three years. I haven't seen anything like that."

"Three years then. Then that would mean you're, at most, twenty, right?" Orion had put two and two together with Artemis. Any information on Jules was good information.

"Nope." Jules popped the 'p'. "I'm thirty three." Orion gave a start. Jules didn't look a day over nineteen!

"That's a long life." Artemis wanted information, and he would stop at nothing to get it, even if that meant trying to take control of Orion's mouth. "Surely there must have been some interesting events throughout it. You must have done something to get by." Not as direct as an interrogation, not as louse as idle conversation. Perfect for gathering knowledge in this situation.

"I worked as an airman, as a reserve soldier for the air force. My wife was the stepdaughter of an old factory runner, so we were well off. My children never had anything to worry about."

'_Note: Ex-soldier with wife and kids.'_ "Anything for a hobby?"

Jules coughed into his fist and then looked back. His lone right black eye met with Orion's sapphire blue eyes, the one hazel now hidden from the world. If only for a moment, every single one of his thirty three years showed through his face. "I did a fair bit, thank you." Jules ended the conversation by slamming the cover of the cockpit closed and gunning the wings. The pale white fire went electric blue, sending the Endeavor into a fast vertical climb. The occupants were forced into their seats (Orion into the hard metal) before Jules pulled the throttles forward and leveled out. The Endeavor was back in the air.

"Cold plasma wings. The technology required must have set you back years. Unless you found it somewhere else." Artemis was fighting for control. In minutes he would retake his body if Orion didn't try to fight back. He just needed some time…

"That's it. As you know, plasma is magnetic. I just run current along the wires and they generate lift. I can alter the shape, producing wings and other shapes. It also dispels electrical charges really well."

Jules flipped a few switches, shrouding the ship with green light. "That's the energy field. It acts as a shield and cloak. Foolproof and bloody effective." Artemis noted that Jules didn't take down the field. Orion verbalized the question. Jules just pointed.

An metal spider was pumping lightning into the sky ahead of them.

…

Opal wondered when it all went straight to hell.

It had been a simple plan; sneak into the portal while Short and the mudmen were busy, find some powerful minions, put the under the Mesmer, and lead them back and kill everyone. Granted she and her past self, who now called herself simply Koboi, had planned out several more steps and fallback plans, but that was the gist of the whole.

They had not planned for Opal to be kidnapped by angry Germans, but she could improvise if something like that came up. All it would have taken was a few well-placed Mesmer's and bam, instant control. The soldiers had other plans though. Having gone willingly, Opal totally expected to be treated like a prisoner of war, meaning she could easily gain access to the captain. But the Geneva conventions were yet to come, and Opal was strapped onto the bow of the ship, chained up by copper wires like a figurehead, and forced to pump her magic into the wires to power and enormous Tesla cannon before she could say D'arvit.

So between plotting gruesome revenge and admiring the human that managed to construct the cannon, Opal was drained of all her magical power. It also hurt that she had only gotten the power a few days ago.

_Opal examined the device. It was circular, with a blue core and rounded sides. A wrist band sat on its back. She held it up to her savior, cocking an eyebrow ironically. "This is going to make me magical again?"_

_Koboi sighed exasperated from her work table, carefully manipulating a ring of platinum into the other battery. "It should work, though it needs to be tested first. You're being our crash test dummy." She ignored the fact that Opal's eyebrow was cocked again- perhaps because her back was turned- and steadily lowered the ring into the battery. Closing the case, Koboi picked up the magical battery in both hands, as gently as if it were a newborn child, triumphant._

_Opal crept up behind her time traveling younger self and using her advantage in height, plucked the battery out of her hands. Koboi groaned and set back to work on completing a modified shimmer suit that would allow both her and her companion to enter the time stream unharmed. Opal watched out of the corner of her eye. Her younger self was so much smarter the she gave herself credit for, but wasn't nearly as intelligent as herself. Or less naïve. Such was the nature of time travelers, always so sure of themselves, always the first to try and take risks. Such fools._

_But Opal still had to admire her younger ingenuity. She wouldn't have considered placing some of her own considerable magic into a lithium battery and strapping it onto her hands. But after years without magic, she would need to practice._

_Opal exited the small hut that she and herself called home. The morning air fogged a little, but Russia was meant to be cold. The Tsar should not have pissed of that demon warlock 3000 years ago. Opal adjusted the second battery on her hand and flipped it into her palm. Stretching her fingers she waited for the familiar power to flow down her arms._

_Sparks danced off of her hands, reaching up to her shoulders. Opal breathed in the sweet scent of magic. It was like nothing else, and certainly nothing you could find in prison. Opal began manipulating the magical flow, repelling off the earth's magnetic field. She was airborne again._

_Opal felt joy for maybe three seconds. Then she began to wonder how she would land._

_Opal circled upward, trying to determine how she had landed before. It wasn't like she could just shut off her magic, she'd break her neck! But if she just kept climbing, then she'd eventually die of decompression sickness. Such was the nature of space when one was not wearing a spacesuit._

"_Slacken off the power and angle your arms back. Bend and brace your legs." Opal glanced down. Koboi was standing below her, hands on her hips, disdain on her face. Opal mimicked the stated action, and was suddenly back flipping in air. She tried to level out, and only succeeded in landing on her face. Opal pulled herself up on her hands and knees and glared at Koboi, whose lips quirked in the odd fashion that meant she was holding back hysterical laughter. She failed spectacularly when Opal managed to get to her feet and flip her off._

"_Just practice some more and you have the landing down pat." Koboi beamed at her fuming future self. She so loved tormenting her. But two could play that game._

_Opal quietly nodded at her, then mused aloud "Oh, the duel dex wing set seems to need some new upgrades. Should I hack Foaly's database again?" Opal felt some karmic vengeance for the look of horror that spread over her younger self's face._

"_You wouldn't."_

"_Try me."_

_Koboi glared at Opal, who activated the batteries and ascended, laughing all the way._

Opal gripped the batteries harder, threatening their structural integrity. She was being used as a human – okay pixie- conduit, pumping the massive reserves of magic into the cannon. The Germans seemed to think that all they needed was to bombard the portal she had fallen so fortunately fallen out of. As if. Mudmen were such idiots. Opal glared up at the observing soldiers, who looked glumly back at her. If she wasn't gagged, she would have had them strangle each other. Or maybe she would mesmerize half of them and have them hunt down the rest. Perhaps she would have them through themselves off the ship, and then haul themselves back up to do it again.

Opal was mid-silent-rant when she noticed something. A thousand tiny pings across the Herkules resounded against her. Then the copper wires began to pull on her arms. They were going up.

…

Jules brought the Endeavor into the time stream, totally focused. They couldn't risk landing anywhere other than directly on top of the Leviathan. He only had so many tries with the temporal crystal. But they were already in trouble before they had even entered the stream. The Herkules had been beneath portal and was now hot on their heels. Not that they knew that, but it was definitely bad. Know the clankers would be attracted to their own time, and land on top of the Darwinians. Hopefully though, he might have time to get the Leviathan and Minotaur out of the general area before they arrived.

Entry into the Russian night was smooth though, a good sign. Jules wonder for a moment, whether or not he should throw Artemis into the time stream and just save himself the trouble. In the end though, he needed Artemis's brains. There was too much of a risk for something to go wrong. He had had that sort of luck when he was fifteen and now he had it when he was thirty three. Dealing with it was just peachy.

The turbulence Jules had become accustomed to greeted him and his passengers at the other end of the portal. Bringing up a screen Verne ran some calculations and put them in front of Jules, who nodded in the quiet. Artemis chose that moment to speak.

"Well, I must apologize for my other half's actions. He is quite insane." Artemis sounded a little sheepish. Jules didn't blame him.

"I would know. Now when to -" Jules's musings were cut short by captain Short. Ironic.

"_Attention all aboard unidentified aircraft, you have ten seconds to exit the area. Your countdown started nine seconds ago."_ A missile streaked passed_. "That was your warning shot."_

Jules grabbed the comm. "Holly, do not fire. Artemis is on board." Any further fire was halted, though Holly wasn't convinced.

"Put me on with him." Jules handed the comm to Artemis.

"Holly, I'm here."

"Arty, are you all right." Artemis gave almost nothing away, but Jules could see the slight quirks that hinted he was both irritated and pleased to hear Holly call him by his pet name. 'It was so obvious.'

"No frankly I'm not," irritation winning out. "I've been kidnapped, dropped, been forced to hike several miles, and stuck in my own mind during the whole ordeal. So no, I'm not okay. Is Butler their?"

"Artemis," Butlers deeper voice boomed from the speakers. "It's good to hear you, though we need to meet face to face." Nothing seemed to crack the bodyguard's professionalism. Jules admired him for that.

Taking back the comm, Jules relayed a quick plan. "My ship generates a buffering energy field that should keep the heat off of the ship's back. Land on the one you're currently circling. It's the Leviathan."

The Endeavor set down first, the energy field spreading out to blanket the area. The shuttle landed next. The legs strained the shield, but nothing went up in flames, so Jules decided it was safe to exit. The two groups disembarked swiftly, with Artemis trying to walk over to Butler, but stopped by Jules.

"I still need you Artemis. You need to come with me, Holly and N`1 as well." Jules gestured them over. N`1 skipped over and stuck out his hand. Jules took it happily, glad to see the little demon.

Holly was far more cautious. Her hand on the neutrino's holster, she quietly inserted herself next to Artemis. "Nice to have you back Mud boy." Holly's tone was playful, but she kept her eyes locked on Jules, ready to attack if he would hurt Artemis. Jules suddenly wondered if this was the best time to reveal who he and Verne really were. But that had to wait.

"It is imperative that we establish contact with the captain. We spotted a hostile frigate coming through the portal after us. Opal Koboi was strapped up as the figurehead." Jules ignored the looks of annoyed slowness that crossed Butler's and Holly's faces. "If we work fast we'll be able to force both the Leviathan and the Minotaur out of the region. Any objections. And we'll just field wipe the captain when we're done." He said in response to Holly's open mouth. "Let's go."

The group moved slowly down the ship's spine, Jules leading, Verne carrying Deryn's body and Artemis bringing everyone up to speed. Butler couldn't follow them into the ship when they found the access hatch. In minutes the group was in the gondola.

"Be careful here, anyone could hear us and think we're intruders." Jules didn't lack for the obvious, though Holly took his statement most literally, and took rear guard, neutrino drawn. The five (six if you count Deryn's body) moved as stealthily as Artemis's clumsiness could allow. They were just level with the middle of the ship when Jules put his shoulder against a door.

"What is it?" Holly slipped up next to him, charging a shot on the neutrino five hundred.

"I'm not sure." Jules stared at the door. "I thought I heard someone in there moan. You don't think that they're in pain?" They waited, and then heard the moan again. Holly and Jules shared a look, then kicked down the door.

…

When they saw what was in front of them, everyone had a few thoughts.

Holly: _I've seen weirder._

Jules: _Must control paternal instinct. Must not kill Alek._

Artemis: _Oookay._

Verne: _Deryn's going to kill him._

N`1: _Why are those boys kissing? Are they practicing?_

Deryn's body: _AWWWWWW_

The particular scene turned out to be Dylan, shirt askew, having wrapped his arms around Alek and furiously kissing him. Alek, to his credit, was stunned into submission by the boy and hadn't managed to pull him off. Jules coughed quietly.

Dylan looked sideways off Alek and nearly fell out of bed. Alek did, the kiss having short circuited his brain. "Hello." Dylan was probably the only person who could be interrupted trying to have sex and reply as normally as he did. It spoke volumes for his psychological health.

Deryn's body acted on its own, disentangling itself from Verne and charging Dylan. Dylan's face barely had time to morph into its customary hateful scowl before Deryn's body had hit him, and locked it's lips on his.

…

Deryn was trying defiantly to get Dylan to kick himself and was shocked when Artemis, Holly and N`1, along with two others she didn't know but guessed were the Jules and Verne that Alek had told Dylan about.

And she was further shocked when her body charged Dylan and kissed him.

Deryn felt herself being dragged at high speed, held up only by some strange force.

She was getting her body back.

…

Deryn and Dylan stood, locked in their embrace for several moments. Then, almost in slow motion, they separated, falling backwards from one another. Jules was at Deryn's side before she could hit the ground.

"Deryn, wake up Deryn. We need you, come on." Jules gave the girl a little shake, which seemed to rouse her. Deryn blinked her eyes, their regular sapphire blue reasserting themselves over the gray symbol, and coughed a little. That little cough turned into a hacking one, with Deryn convulsing with each breath. Holly placed her palm on her, blue sparks weaving in and out of Deryn's chest. For a few moments Deryn's coughs doubled in strength before dropping off. She rubbed her raw throat.

"Barking spiders that stings. Last time I ask for directions from split personalities."

Jules guided her to her feet, gently steading her. "Are you all right? Nothing broken, everything intact, how much is eight by seven and a half?" Jules waited patiently as Deryn gave him a look, before realizing that he wanted an answer.

"I'm alright, but who are you? Are you that Jules guy Alek was talking about?" Jules nodded once, content to give nothing else away. Artemis though seemed to have noticed something else.

"Holly, get over here now." Artemis had his hand on Dylan's throat, the boy rigid and still, his lips turning blue, his hazel eyes rolled up into his head. Holly dropped to her knees next to him, but had barely touched him when she recoiled. She cast a dark look at Artemis before announcing,

"He's dead."

"Good riddance." Jules shocked Verne with his quiet hate, but she should have expected it. After what Dylan had done to Deryn…

"He was the worst kind of person, the kind of person who wouldn't go out and work for his life, who wouldn't have dressed up, worked on his lines and try to woo a nice girl, but someone who would just fuck a cow." He slid up to Dylan's body and gave it a little kick, while Artemis tried to work out where the hate had come from, N`1 tried to figure out how Dylan had died, and Alek wondering if he had just been compared to a cow. Deryn took one look at him and Dylan and couldn't have agreed more. Dylan really was that messed up.

Verne made to exit the room and gesture the rest out, when she stopped at the edge of the room, disbelieving the sight in front of her. When she did communicate it was in a high, cracked voice. "Artemis, Jules, get out here." The two boys pushed past her, and saw what was outside the Leviathan.

They had run out of time. The Herkules had arrived.

Deryn shoved her way to the window, staring out at the frigate. The clankers where here again. But now they had nothing to stop them. No portal to drag them through. No quick escape to be made.

The Tesla cannon pivoted, blue sparks racing up the cables to the forward batteries. Jules pulled out his telescope, looking for the source of the power. His eyes alighted on Opal, her screams of rage inaudible from the distance. '_She_ _has_ _truly_ _gone_ _mad'_ was the last thought through Jules mind before he started screaming.

The cannon loosed the built up charge of magic laced lightning onto the Minotaur. Electricity danced upon the skin, before flaring. Deryn screamed in fear for her brother. Jules screamed too. The Minotaur began to really burn, hydrogen flaring in white and red bursts. Explosions racked the flank, fires spread like disease. Man and beast vanished in the pyre the ship provided.

The Herkules began the slow retreat west, intent on returning with greater forces. It would not return for now, but the Darwinians would now know that the clankers could not be crossed.

Jules watched as the Minotaur fell from the sky. Then, without thinking, he sprinted down the corridor, dodging and weaving past the airmen that came out of their rooms, rudely awakened and gawking at the sight of the Minotaur, burning on the ground in the night. Verne called out from behind him, trying to stop him and make him see sense. But Jules wouldn't hear it. One thought, one voice, dominated him.

'_I won't let Jaspert die like I did.'_

**A/N: In celebration of completing this chapter and finally getting my buffer up, I will be releasing this chapter on a Saturday.**

**Woohoo. **

**To anyone that doesn't read UnknownUnseenUnheard; Why? Oh and I'll be doing a crossover with him, so there's that. I hope that this chapter is as interesting as the others. See you next wee**


	13. Chapter 13

**Chapter 13**

**Eye of the storm**

**A/N: Well, I should clarify because someone decided to bring this up: No, the line in which Jules refrained from killing Alek was not a typo. He really wanted to hurt him because Dylan was kissing him.**

…

Jaspert Sharp woke in a cold sweat. For a few tense minutes, he lay in his bed trying to figure out what had just happened, why he was awake. Finally Jaspert smirked, amused at himself. For a moment he had thought he was in danger. It seemed his dreams were getting to him, if he was thinking that he was going to die any minute now.

_'Just a dream, nothing to worry about. Deryn's okay, I'll see her tomorrow. The Minotaur's still in the air, the Clankers are far away. Nothing's going to happen.'_

_'Nothing to worry about.'_

Jaspert rolled over in his bed and fell back asleep. He thought he was safe. This was the first time a Sharp would be wrong that night.

…

In her entire career as a soldier, this was the closest Deryn had ever come to completely breaking down. She had been through a lot in the past few days. She'd been hurled between realities, her body had been dropped hundreds of feet, and she'd been psychologically kidnapped. She'd been at the mercy of three different people in the course of four days and was sick of continuously getting stuck.

And now…and _now_…

The crew filtered through the hall, message lizards waking some of them up and the rest roused by their roommates. Deryn blended in easily with them, almost invisible in the crowd of men. She had tried to fly her whole life, after her father had died, after her mother and her aunties had tried to stuff her back into skirts. Now she was back in her element, high in the sky and serving her king. And now this! If there was a God, he hated her. Maybe because she was a godless Darwinist. Maybe because she was a girl dressed in boys slops. Who knew His will, but He and those who had gone past?

_'Da knows now. And so does… and so does Da.'_ Deryn couldn't stomach the thought. But she was a soldier first, she had to be. So she would need to act like one.

"Come _on_, you lot, hurry up. We've got to tell the captain about you and Opal. He can't underestimate the Clankers with _her_!" Deryn tried to guide Artemis, Alek and the fairies through the crowd of men. Holly had shielded quickly and No1 looked indistinguishable from the throng of men with an appearance spell. Artemis, however, remained fully visible and drew a number of odd looks and side glances from the crew. He took it professionally and ignored them as much as he could, even though it was hard to overlook someone who was glaring at a sword you had slotted into your belt.

Deryn moved down the corridor as urgently as she could. Anyone would want to stop her and figure out who her peculiar escort was, but they made it to the captain's cabin before anyone could pull them aside. Captain Hobbes was pulling on his socks when they knocked.

"Ah! Dylan, Your Highness, come in." Hobbes looked over at Artemis. "Who's our guest? Not someone who's going to stir up any more trouble?" Hobbes was trying to sound dismissive, and mostly pulled it off. First Mate Fowler and Mister Hirst were in the room as well. _'At least they're all here,' _Deryn thought_. 'Got to make this convincing'._

"Captain Hobbes, when I said that I didn't remember the time I was missing, I was lying. I recalled it perfectly, but was forbidden to tell anyone. While I was up in the Huxley, I was sucked into a parallel universe populated by fairies in hiding. They found me, healed me and offered to take me back at the price of my memories. I encountered something that took over my consciousness and created a body for himself, kidnapping me and casting out my body. Artemis Fowl here" - Deryn gestured to the pale youth, who bowed - "found me the first time and then my body. I owe him my life. He and some of his associates have come aboard the Leviathan and are trying to assist us. They're called - "

"Jules and Verne." Hobbes finished the sentence. "They talked me into granting them asylum. I'm glad that I seem to have made the right decision. But what do the Clankers have to do with these fairies?"

"Almost nothing," Deryn continued, heartened considerably by his reaction. He seemed to believe her story. "However a particularly dangerous fairy, a pixie called Opal Koboi, has formed some sort of alliance with the Germans. They are tapping into her magical power and using it to power the Tesla cannon on the Herkules. If they return with reinforcements, then the Leviathan will not survive. And neither will anyone aboard her," Deryn finished with quietly. Hobbes, Hirst and Fowler all looked her over before the captain nodded, understanding. Fowler didn't.

"You've gone daft, Sharp." Fowler looked like he would sooner surrender to the Clankers than believe something as impossible as the existence of fairies. Deryn didn't blame him for that, but she was still angry. Artemis intervened on her behalf.

"Everything that Dylan has said is the absolute truth. I do come from a universe populated by fairies and humans." Deryn caught Artemis's change in accent. While with the fairies he had spoken with a clean Irish accent, now he spoke with a harsh Scottish one. He sounded a lot like herself and her family. "We can prove it to you if you wish." Artemis glanced at the soldier that had been following them. Deryn had assumed that he was No1 in disguise and was ready to be proven right. Fowler scoffed quietly.

"There isn't anything that you could do to prove your story. You're probably Clankers, come here to try and kill us." Fowler drew his air pistol. "I told you, Calvin, she was turned by the Clankers. She's a spy."

That drove Deryn over the edge. She pointed at No1, and said simply: "Show them."

No1 undid the magic, allowing the charm to vanish and reveal him for the whole room to see. Silence reigned for a moment. Hirst's eyes threatened to jump from their sockets. Fowler's air pistol was shaking ominously. Hobbes had gone very white. Alek simply stared, mouth agape. No1 gave a little wave to the assembled. Finally Hobbes spoke up, shakily, but coherent either way.

"So are you a, er, pixie?" Hobbes gulped, not taking his eye off No1.

No1 snorted. "No, sir, I am not a pixie. I am, in fact, a demon."

This did not have the intended effect.

Fowler gasped loudly and pulled the trigger. The ball bearing hit No1 smack in the forehead. Fowler then gave a little squeal and collapsed, knocked out by Holly's Neutrino, with Holly herself staying invisible. Hobbes scrambled over his bed, pulling out shelves from the nightstand next to it. Alek gave a little whimper and fainted. Hirst gasped and made to pull his air gun out, but froze when he saw that No1 was rubbing his head. The ball bearing that Fowler had shot him with just bounced off the armored plates. "That was really rude, you know. I could have been – Hello."

Hobbes had returned from his crusade into his clothes with a Bible. Shoving it out from his chest he proclaimed: "You shalt not take me tonight demon." He began reciting the story of Gideon under his breath. No1 just facepalmed.

"And who says Darwinists are godless," Deryn murmured. She put her hand on No1's shoulder, and spoke louder. "No1 here isn't a demon, well, not a steal-your-soul sort of demon. He's a fairy demon warlock. He's _harmless_." No1 smiled serenely. Hobbes pointed at his first mate.

"And you call that harmless? He's killed him." Hobbes went back to reciting Holy Scripture, but Hirst looked thoughtful. Before he could say anything though, Alek moaned and came to.

"_Mien_ _Gott_! Dylan I just had the strangest dream, I…" Alek drifted off when he saw No1 again. For a moment Deryn hoped he would just try and let her explain. But Alek gave a shriek worthy of any highborn woman, and half-lunged, half-crawled for the door. He hit something midway there and collapsed on his stomach. Holly phased back into the visible spectrum, her booted foot on Alek's head, eliciting gasps from the three people that were not used to magic and still conscious.

"This is Holly; she's an elf." Deryn smiled at the female elf, who smirked back at her. Hobbes looked from Holly to No1 and back and finally threw down the Bible in exasperation. "She's a field soldier and she's the one who knocked out the first mate. She's not as harmless." Hirst nodded to himself then turned to Hobbes.

After several moments of quiet deliberation, Hobbes turned back to the midshipman, the genius, the archduke, the demon, and the elf. It only registered to Deryn then how weird the group probably looked from the outside. It really was something that would have never been seen anywhere on her world and probably on Artemis's too. Hobbes cleared his throat and after only a few false starts began speaking.

"If this pixie, Opal Koboi, is in allegiance with the Germans, then we have to defend our position until assistance can arrive. We must also search for any survivors of the Minotaur's wreck. You, No1, you mentioned that you were a warlock. What can you do?"

No1 shrugged modestly. "I'm a healer. I'll help anyone who is hurt."

Hobbes nodded, then said "You'll be needed down in the medical bay. And if you'll be as kind as to, um, not look like that?" No1 smiled and the officer he had been impersonating reformed around him.

Hobbes turned to Holly. "You're a soldier, right? We'll need your expertise." Holly didn't wait for a reply; she merely turned and jumped out of the window, her wings sliding out and carrying her aloft. Hobbes finally turned to Artemis.

"I'll assume that tactical retreats aren't your intention, in which case I'll be quite useless to you." Artemis gestured out of the room. "It would be best for me to leave." Hobbes held up a hand, stopping Artemis.

"You'll still stay on our ship, if you would be so kind. You're our insurance that your friends don't leave us." Hobbes grimaced. "I don't like the idea of holding someone against their will, especially a child, but this is for the good of my crew." Hobbes waived his hands hopelessly. "I hope you'll understand."

Artemis nodded, impassive, then grimaced himself. "I'd have done the same thing, captain." Turning to Alek, Artemis asked, "The Captain called you 'Your Highness'. May I ask who you are?" Deryn sighed. She had consciously avoided talking about Alek when she had arrived, and only now had it come to her attention that she had let him come with her and Artemis.

"Yes, he said 'Your Highness.' Can we discuss this at a later date, please?" Deryn shoved both boys out into the hallway, pushing them in the direction of the medical bay and the starboard engine. Hopeful that Artemis wouldn't know what to do, Deryn began to guide him, but was brought up short when Captain Hobbes called her.

"Mister Sharp, we will need you on the ground to search for survivors of the Minotaur." The captain's words rang like the toll of an iron bell. Deryn opened her mouth to protest, but Hobbes just raised his hand. "We need all the men we can get, and that includes you. Any and all soldiers we have need to be down there." And he dropped the subject.

For a moment, Deryn stared after him, seized by the urge to scream at him, to say she wasn't a soldier, that she wasn't a man, that she shouldn't be helping look, that she shouldn't even be here on the Leviathan. But all she could manage was a silently choked back sob and a half-hearted salute. Anything less could not be accepted from Dylan Sharp, a boy alive and well.

…

Deryn stood on the lip of the cargo bay of the Leviathan, ropes dangling down to the surface, connecting her home in the sky to the land below. _'First Istanbul, now here. I'll have a fine long list of places I've wanted to barking kill myself in before the war's over.'_ Deryn sighed and gripped one of the ropes. A Huxley was working its way up, carrying Newkirk and a message lizard. She been told she would ride it down and start searching for anyone who survived. But Deryn had other plans. She really hadn't figured them out yet, but… _'First Da, now Jaspert. Why is this happening to me?_' At least they hadn't found her father's body. She wouldn't have known what would have happened to her if she had been faced with his corpse. Even so, she hadn't spoken for a month.

Now she would go done and try to find her brothers body. Everyone thought they were only cousins, didn't even suspect that they were siblings. If they ever found out and tried to dig into who she was, they would ship her off to home faster than she could say 'blisters'. Women in the military were either found out and shipped back home or walked off the battlefield as men. They hid their secrets in combat or hid their faces at home. And Deryn Sharp was not going to be walking off this battlefield a girl. _'Hopefully not in a pine box either, like Jassss… no. Not in a pine box.'_

Newkirk reached the cargo bay and tied off the Huxley. Deryn nodded once and stepped into his place. But before she could cast off, his voice caught her. "Dylan, are you sure you want go down there? It's a slice of hell." That, right there, almost convinced her to turn around and go to the captain.

Almost.

"No, Saulb, I'm sure. I've been ordered down there by the captain. I have to follow orders. We all have to, especially with the wounded men down there." Her voice came out hollow, like it was from someone who was sick and dying. Newkirk placed his hand on her shoulder.

"I know that your brother was on the Minotaur. We've already found men alive. Hurt but alive. If your brother was down there, he'll be found. I know it. Don't ask me how, but I'm sure that he'll be found." Saulb removed his hand, and Deryn turned to him. Newkirk didn't look a thing like her. Scrawny and barely three inches taller than her (with at least one of those inches from his knobby knees), messy black hair and bright green eyes that looked like leaves, he was a world away from her pale skin, blond hair and sapphire blue eyes. But, maybe it was a side effect of war, he felt like her brother in every way. He hadn't been through the fights she had, hadn't been at her side the same way Alek had, but he was her brother in arms.

Saulb threw her a salute, then spun on a heel and started towards the cabins. Deryn watched him go. Then, even though no one could possibly see her, Saulb included, she threw the salute back. She set back to work on a knot Newkirk had tied, and a moment later she was descending to the earth, feeling just a little lighter.

…

Deryn touched the scorched soil for the first time in ages. She hadn't been in her own world when she had been found, so this counted as the first time since Istanbul she had been on the ground. Men ran every which way, some moving wounded on stretchers, some struggling with hydrogen sniffers, more setting out in teams to look for missing. Deryn spotted one such group leaving with four men and two sniffers, hot on the trail of men, healthy or wounded. Deryn caught the leader's ear and convinced him to take her. He nodded and took her out into the night.

Newkirk had been right; it was a slice of hell down in the forest. Brush fires burned in random areas, waiting to be doused by ballast. The escaping hydrogen ignited at random intervals, their loud bangs disorienting the sniffers. Strafing hawks and flechette bats wheeled in mad circles, more than one releasing a dart or two on the search party. Deryn watched one fall in front of her, looking like an iron snowflake. The crash loomed larger in the distance every time she looked; a funeral pyre to so many men.

"Alright boys and girls, we've got ourselves a lot of work tonight. If you find anyone-" The search team leader got no farther than that, when a louder than usual bang echoed across the night. The sniffers shrieked and bolted, taking advantage of their handlers' momentary distraction. He and Deryn dashed after the dogs. Deryn stuck her fingers in her mouth and blew, trying to calm the dogs. One paused and the handler grabbed its leash. The other shot into the forest, with Deryn running and whistling after it.

At length the hydrogen sniffer slowed and stopped, its six legs no longer churning the ground in front of it. Deryn finally caught it, snatching up the leash in triumph. But now she was alone in the Russian wilderness.

Deryn turned and turned again, reorienting herself off the crashed whale. The Leviathan's searchlight pierced the dark, providing a rough locale to aim for. Deryn watched it swipe across the woodland, coming over her once, before turning to the crash and setting out for it, deciding that she might as well do the thing properly.

The hydrogen sniffer led her towards what looked like the lattice work of timbers and leather that hand been the guiding frame of the Minotaur. Deryn had almost reached the rear engine house when a crash of twigs sounded behind her. Deryn spun round, trying to see if it was someone wounded, a crewman from the Leviathan, or a wild animal. It wasn't any of those. The red clad man with a pirate's hat was Jules.

The man starred at Deryn for a moment, his mouth slightly open. Deryn gave him a low nod and pointed to the wreck. He glanced around and said, "I'm looking for someone, and you're not him, Deryn. You'll welcome to join me though." Jules waited for Deryn's reply. When it came, it was a strangled gasp.

"You know me." Deryn starred at Jules, who shrugged. "But you've never met me, how could you know my barking name?" As answer, Jules gave a sheepish smile.

"I heard you name in the tunnel. People can hear each other's thought in them, to an extent. You were repeating you name over and over in it. And thought you were dead." Jules gave another weak grin at Deryn's only slightly horrified look. What else had he heard?

Jules turned back to the wreck, not advancing anymore, but staring at the fires. A loud, wet bang, hydrogen igniting in the membrane rather than open air, spooked the sniffer. Deryn settled down next to it, whistling high and then low to calm it. When she stood back up, Jules was beaming at her. "What?"

"Gift of tongues." Jules answered. "It seems you acquired the trait in the tunnel. Not something I expected, but definitely something that you'd want with the line of work you're in, Deryn." Jules's grin widened fractionally.

Deryn shrugged modestly. "I've always had the trick. I've had a way with animals ever since my Da-" Deryn cut herself off, shocked that Jules had got her babbling. She hadn't mentioned her father to anyone, save for Alek. Frantic for something to move the conversation away from her father, Deryn asked, "What about you? What do you do?"

Jules's smile faded. He looked back at the wreck, quiet. At length, he began. "I was a father. I had two beautiful children, and a loving wife. My job was simple and easy and I enjoyed it. I lived in a dream, a happy one, free of fear and worry. Then there was… an accident. I lost everything I loved in one fell stroke." Jules lived his arms, the sleeves falling down. Beneath the cloth were withered and blackened arms, scarred and torn. Deryn gasped, and Jules lowered his arms. For a moment neither spoke. Then-

"It was a kerosene explosion. They were torn from me, ripped away in the most heinous fashion." Jules looked at Deryn, distant. "I went mad with grief. I still think that the world around me is a dream, but now a nightmare. Even now…" Jules reached out and rubbed Deryn's cheek, his hands brushing the shallow scar that a bullet had gouged in it from the tunnel. Deryn didn't move to brush his hand away. She trusted him, because she had felt the same when Da had died. She had been so lost without her father, so sad.

They suddenly heard twigs snapping from the direction of the wreck. Two men staggered out of the gloom and shadows, carrying a man between them by his legs and arms. Both stopped dead at the sight of Deryn and Jules. Jules snatched his hand away from Deryn's face, turning to the men. "What do you need?"

"Um, a stretcher, if you have one. We need to get this one to the Leviathan." The lead man looked like he had expected something other than two near teens in the forest, though the second seemed less surprised and more wary. Jules wandered over and looked at the body between them. Deryn heard his gasp and went over to him. The men laid the body on the ground, and Deryn saw it was Jaspert.

The eighteen-year-old was pale and bleeding out of his shoulder and under his eye from cuts. Bruises and scrapes riddled what flesh of his body was visible. His normally pale complexion was bone white, a perfect match to the shirt and shorts he wore. But with a slow rasp, Jaspert inhaled. He was far from healthy, but Jaspert Sharp lived.

Deryn made to grab at her brother, but Jules beat her to it. With a flick of his wrists and fingers, a green cup appeared under Jaspert, lifting him up. Jules set out wordlessly, the scoop and Jaspert with it, along with the men, following him to the Leviathan's recovery point. After a moment, Deryn followed. Her brother was alive and alright. He would be fine.

This was the third time that a Sharp had been wrong that night.

…

Jaspert Sharp heaved himself to his feet. The wreckage of what had been his cabin was spread out around him. He was vaguely aware of the fact that he was only in his drawls and a button up shirt, when he remembered what he was doing here.

_'There'd been a commotion outside my room. The men were saying that a Clanker land dreadnought had fallen out of the sky. I went back in to get dressed when I …got …shocked. Barking spiders, we were hit by a Tesla cannon._'

Jaspert tried to get his bearings. The cabin was smashed beyond repair, broken to pieces that were broken themselves. It was a miracle that Jaspert was alive and unhurt.

A sharp twinge ran down his arm. Jaspert winced. _'Guess I can scratch out the unhurt bit'_. Jaspert looked down the wreckage. The hall was shattered like his room, but someone was standing in it. A man, with pale skin and jet black hair, stood on a patch of debris. Fire wreathed itself around him, but it didn't touch him. Jaspert gaped at it being one thought one his mind. _'No_.'

The figure turned and vanished through the flames. Jaspert moved after it. The figure broke into a run, jumping through the flames like they weren't there. Jaspert ran as quickly as his arm would allow, all the while wondering if he was dead. The being sprinted and jumped through the fire. Jaspert followed through a last clump of flaming debris, and found himself in a clearing. The tail of the Minotaur swept past him. The figure had its back turned to him, but even here the fire did not leave it. Jaspert stepped forward and said one word.

"Da."

The figure turned with deliberate slowness. Black hair turned blond. Blue eyes burned hazel. Jaspert looked into the face of his sister and screamed. The being charged, and vanished. Jaspert passed out.

And that was the second time a Sharp had been wrong that night.

**A/N: A whole Deryn chapter, like chapter seven. You like? And I have a Beta. Finally.**

**B/N: Yeeee~s you do.**

**Hi, I'm stopthattime_rave. I'm the one who's editing this thing, starting right now. If you see any mistakes I made/forgot, for the love of God, TELL ME. Don't worry about hurting my feelings; I really don't care. I'm practically made of iron. ^_~ (Also, my greatest apologies for getting this done so late. Waa.)**


	14. Chapter 14

**Chapter 14**

**Return To The Breach**

**A/N: Well, this chapter's bound to be the least eventful of all, at least in regards to the rest of the story. But the second battle should be fun. This is an art chapter, so expect a nurse Fowl, a belligerent Holly, an empathetic No1, and a Butler in his element.**

Enjoy.

It should be made known that Artemis Fowl, in the course of time during which his father had been missing, had taught himself a fair number of medical and curative techniques in the event that his father had been brought to harm during his time missing. They had been what had landed him a position in the medical ward of the _Leviathan_.

Artemis sat around rubbing salves on burns, injecting morphine into victims, and strapping bones together with braces. This process was largely repeated in different permutations as each person was to be hastily stabilized in lieu of actual treatment, as the constant medical miracles that No1 performed outweighed conventional methods. No1 would place his hands on the wounded, whisper words of power, and transfigure them into healthy men. It was all very subdued, as each man was either dead on arrival, wounded to the point of near death, or simply well enough to let them return without treatment.

Dr. Busk stood in a corner, muttering about losing his job to some upstart that could do magic. He remained silent otherwise, communicating in pointed glares and ignorance of the constant stream of healed men walking dazed out of his office. But Doctor Barlow was a different story.

Artemis's first reaction to the fact that Charles Darwin's granddaughter was aboard had primarily been quiet disbelief, but the spectacular series of coincidences that had led Deryn to first arrive in his universe (and he knew that they had to be coincidences, as Deryn had wanted her father to save her in the time tunnel, and instead found her way to Artemis) had produced yet another one when it turned out Nora Darwin Barlow was, in fact, on board. Since then he had been trying for an interview, but largely failed at the set task, as Barlow had found herself far more interested in No1's healing magic.

No1 was just explaining that magic was really energy when a young-looking girl stormed in, looking murderous. Artemis paused from tending to a man that was spouting on about a vision of people with iron prosthetics to take in the girl's subdued haughty manner, intellectual bearing, and concealing scarf wrapped around her head, and nodded to Verne in greeting. The women looked at him, her face contorted in such angered frustration that Artemis wondered if she was related to Opal Koboi for a moment. She certainly had the evil eye down, now all she needed was insane amounts of magic and a megalomaniac bend, and she would be set.

"Do you know how hard it is to stop you geniuses from getting your way? It is literally impossible to do so if you yourself are not one of these said geniuses. I have been yelling at Jules for _ten_ _minutes_, and he refuses to come back onto the _Leviathan_. And I cannot follow him with the _Endeavor_, because he has taken it with him." Verne spoke in a slow, low tone, leaving Artemis to wonder if he knew her, as she was obviously trying to cover her real voice. But she could also be so close to snapping that she was keeping her voice like this to control herself. Artemis had seen such techniques employed by Holly before, and knew that they were completely ineffectual. No1 didn't grasp this.

"You could just go down and search for him. Just take the - " No1 was cut off by Verne's scream.

"I WILL _NOT_ GO DOWN AND SEARCH FOR JULES. HE CAN JUST STAY LOST IN THE FOREST, LOOKING FOR HIS PRECIOUS… _FRIENDS_ AND NEVER COME BACK FOR ALL I CARE! HE HAS HAD A _FINE_ TIME MESSING WITH MY FEELINGS AND I _REFUSE_ TO LET HIM DO IT ANY MORE!"

Artemis had decided dignity be damned and stuffed his fingers into his ears, allowing Verne's tirade to roll over him without damaging his eardrums. Her low, false speech discarded for the moment, Artemis took her voice and mentally cross-referenced it all the voices of people he had encountered in his fairy escapades. Verne's height, 4"5', overrode any so she had to be fully human. Artemis checked the numerous contacts he had memorized and drew a blank. He had no idea who this Verne character was, so she was inconsequential to the fairies.

(I know a word that starts with I and ends with gnorance.)

Artemis removed his fingers from his ears and began to say that she was being unreasonable, that her accusations (and the urge to take them out on them) were unfounded, and that her whole person would probably benefit from a long, relaxing session of meditation, when the world shifted to port.

Dr. Barlow and No1 were kneeling over a particularly wounded soldier and thus were able to keep their balance. Dr. Busk was in a corner brooding and grabbed a desk to stay steady. Artemis wasn't crouching or in a corner, so he grabbed for the nearest stable object. That object turned out to be Verne. Verne herself might have maintained her balance if she had ever been privy to using her legs as a usual manner of movement. Or maybe if she had used her legs much before arriving on the Leviathan. Verne and Artemis found themselves in a messy heap on the floor. Orion chose that moment to make himself known.

_"Artemis, I'm ashamed to share a body with you. Do you know how inappropriate this position is? If you are to even consider something like this, then it must be attended to behind closed doors. I am –"_

_"Yes, yes, yes, I understand Orion, but I have slightly more pressing issues to attend to, namely that fact we are in a banking turn." _

Artemis glanced up from the mess Verne's scarf had made to Dr. Barlow. The good doctor had cocked an ear, listening to the countless noises of the living ship made at even the slightest movement while Artemis worked to disentangle himself from Verne. Orion stood at the back of Artemis's mind, waiting until Artemis had mostly dusted himself off, before pointing out Verne was still on the ground and that most people would have helped her up.

Of course that wasn't exactly what he said. What he said went something along the lines of: "_And now that you have taken to return to your feet, brother, the fair maiden that you have dragged to earth with you in your abhorrent attempt to save yourself has yet to be brought to her feet. And who is to be blamed but you and me? As such you should try to reclaim her from the floor's evil, dirty grip. Shall you?"_

Artemis took Verne's hand and pulled her up. Verne gave him an unidentifiable look, somewhere between disgust, recognition and affection. Artemis then received the shock of his life when she leaned forward and gave him a peck on the cheek. Now, that doesn't seem like much, but Artemis had never really been kissed by someone who either wasn't his mother or drunk on magic, so it was a reasonable surprise. Verne smiled and walked out of the room, leaving a vaguely confused Artemis and some very amused doctors.

"Certain circumstances can lead to deep affection and attraction, though I've never known falling on someone to be such a trigger," Dr. Barlow noted. "I should pursue such quires with the, er, fairies, when they come available."

No1 giggled quietly, happily content with the knowledge that Verne wasn't everything on the surface. She had some strange quirks and a few very obvious prejudices, but kept herself in full control most of the time.

Busk clapped the still-shocked Artemis on the back. "That's a good lad; now, all you need is a little meat on your bones and you're set for life!" Dr. Busk had a wife waiting for him at home, and understood relationships. It also helped that Artemis was the only other person in the room that seemed halfway normal.

Artemis flexed his fingers in a slight show of calming his nerves. That had been…unexpected. However, he had figured out two things from Verne's outburst. Number one was the possible identity of Jules. The other was the probable identity of Verne. But the theory had several gaping holes in it, the most prominent being how she and Jules had arrived in the local time. While it wasn't completely impossible, it certainly seemed strange.

Thunder crashed outside, and Artemis was wrenched from his thoughts. It looked like the _Herkules_ was back.

…

Butler looked down on the _Herkules_, the _Gesamt_ and the _Dschinghis_ _Kahn_. The walker frigate, the carrier dreadnought, and the light hydrogen airship had appeared on the horizon minutes before, and were now within range of engagement. A few scouting planes had circled some distant point, maybe taken pictures. Butler took note of this with the detached professionalism he had shown throughout the entire, mad venture. It was only working for Artemis that had led him to be standing on an enormous flying whale trying to shoot down German airplanes. Not something that had been in the job description.

Butler took up a defensive position on the spine, pulling one of the guns into alignment, and firing some test rounds. The kick back was surprisingly light, though the heavy supply of ammo probably had something to do with it. Butler tried his luck at range, managing to cause one to twist in air and begin to fall. The gun may have been good, but Butler was better.

Several crews of soldiers scrambled onto the spine from hatches. They seemed to take the enormous man on the forward battery in stride, though one collapsed when he came near Butler. The action might have been perpetrated by the altitude that the _Leviathan_ had achieved, or the altitude that Butler had. He ignored it anyway.

The _Herkules_ was slowly building an electric charge at the base of its Tesla cannon, while the _Gesamt_ launched a flurry of biplanes. The _Dschinghis_ _Kahn_ started climbing, aiming to get level with the Leviathan and shoot from there.

Butler watched as a flock of birds detached itself from the flank of the ship. As one, the hawks descended on the German airship, portions of it tearing free, others beginning the slow wilt of torn gas bags. Needless to say, the _Kahn_ didn't come close to the _Leviathan_.

Butler turned his gun at a front of six or seven planes, opening fire. Two went down before the line broke, but another vanished in a blast of light. Butler looked up from the sight of his gun, wondering what happened to the other plane. A second ball of light shot over Butler's shoulder, colliding with another biplane and destroying it as well.

A third missed its mark, apparently fired from about midway down the spine. Butler decided it was some sort of RPG and returned to firing the gun. There are a lot of answers that you could explain this with, but an RPG is certainly one of the less correct ones.

The gun jammed suddenly. Butler swore and gave it a hard hit. The gun freed itself for maybe six shots before it jammed again. Butler took the gun in both hands and waited for ten agonizing seconds. A German plane took advantage of the seeming malfunction of the forward gun to prepare a run over the spine. Butler counted down from five, then grabbed the cooled gun and opened up on the biplane. The plane shuddered in air and tore to pieces, the fragments tumbling into the cold night surrounding the _Leviathan_.

A second wave of planes was approaching from over the _Herkules_, electricity buzzing in the air around it. Butler took the offer and concentrated his fire on one that was passing almost directly over the bow, sending it spiraling…

…into the Tesla cannon.

The air crackled and exploded, the pent-up magic-infused electricity discharged in a single burst. Butler's marksman eyes couldn't see that far, but he thought he saw a diminutive shape strapped to the bow of the _Herkules_ flinch. The thunder rolled over him and the _Leviathan_, creating the sense of power that one got when they succeeded in something that no one else had.

Butler smiled grimly, and started searching for his next target.

…

Holly circled the _Herkules_ when the biplane hit the Tesla cannon. Now Holly wasn't a physicist, D'Arvit, she wasn't even an _electrician_. But she knew that hitting anything that big with a plane was not a good idea.

The released electricity erupted with tectonic force, moving for anything to exhaust itself on. The metal frames of several nearby planes were fair game. So was Holly.

The elf captain got a warning that she was about to be hit with thousands of volts of electricity a few nanoseconds before it hit. Holly convulsed midair, her magic conflicting with the power pumping through her veins. The wing set short circuited on her back, shocking her unconscious. And then Holly fell.

Consciousness came back like a reluctant dog, and Holly stirred on something soft and squishy. It turned out that the soft and squishy thing was Opal Koboi, still rigged up as the _Herkules's_ figurehead. Holly disentangled herself from Opal's body and the copper rigging she was tied to. Opal twitched in the rigging, but otherwise didn't move. Holly was careful anyway; Opal had once faked her own coma for thirteen months.

Loud voices alerted Holly's attention to the bow. Several soldiers were moving across the deck, and shifting down the rigging to grab her. Holly contemplated her options. She could let them capture her and then escape. She could fight her way out now. Or she could jump onto the ground that was steadily getting farther and farther away.

Holly did a double take on that last option. The ground was certainly moving away from the _Herkules_, or was the _Herkules_ getting farther away from the ground? The second fact proved to be true when the front legs straightened and then detached themselves from the earth. Several soldiers shouted in German, something that Holly's magic translated as "Oh God, not again!" The _Herkules_, _Kahn_ and _Gesamt_ were all ascending toward the _Leviathan_.

A few metallic pings started on the bow and didn't stop. When one man's head dissolved into red ruin, Holly's suspicion was confirmed. The _Leviathan_ was firing on the slayer of its sister ship. Men began to climb back to the gun deck, though several reeled in the wires before they could manage it. Holly felt her wings lift her up. Whatever was moving the German landships was magnetic, and reaching for her too.

Holly tried to activate her wings, and was a little shocked to find that they were working. She would have just one chance to get back to the Leviathan, but thanks to Foaly's engineering capabilities, it was a chance. _'I'm really going to need to buy him a carrot when I get back'_, Holly thought.

Holly primed herself, waited till she was nearly level with the ascending airbeast, and jumped.

A blue blur dissolved into the position Holly had been in a second ago. Opal Koboi the younger looked into the unconscious face of her older self, and started to work on the copper wires.

…

No1 charged down the corridor with soldiers dodging out of his way. He needed to get to the head of the ship as soon as possible.

He had felt the magical pulse when he was in the medical bay. The _Leviathan_ was moving fast to the portal, and he needed to stop it from entering. If it went in without a warlock to shield the people onboard, the whole ship would end up in the middle of cosmic limbo.

No1 pushed several men out of the way of a particularly under-crowded ladder and started on his way up. The spine was almost deserted when he reached the top. Only Butler and a few other men still manned guns. Theo Black shoved past No1 and started down the ladder, trying to escape. The _Herkules_ and the _Gesamt_ rolled past the ascending _Leviathan_. No1 watched the spectacle for a few seconds before moving towards the bow.

"Butler," he said in greeting. The man servant fired a few more rounds.

"No1," he replied. "Where's Artemis? Is he still in the medical bay?" Butler fired at a lazily drifting plane that only had one person in it and wasn't running.

"Yes, but I need to guide the ship through the tunnel; otherwise, we'll all need doctors." No1 reached into his magical reserves, and spoke to the airship.

_"Hello?"_

_"Hello."_

_"Nice to meet you."_

_Nice to meet you too. Are you the same fairy-person that spoke to me last time?"_

_"What! I'm not the first person that's spoken to you?"_

_"No, there was this girl-woman that said I needed to go near hole-sky. She said it was because Lightning-fire would destroy me if I did not." _

_"Er, what was she like?"_

_"Very nice-kind, though a little rabid. She said she was a fairy-pixie. What is a fairy-pixie?"_

_"Um, do you mean she was a pixie, or just a fairy?"_

_"Both. What's the difference?"_

_"Never mind, you need to stop. We'll be destroyed!"_

_"She said that lightning-fire would be gone if I did this. If you're implying she was lying then I'll have to ask her."_

_"Just stop."_

_"I can't. The temporal stream is dragging me into it."_

_"Then hang on!"_

No1 wondered who the pixie was, and placed his hands on the flank of the Leviathan. It would be a bumpy ride.

…

**A/N: I've been rather lucky to get about one review per chapter, but some people have managed a hundred reviews per chapter. I really hope that my later stories will have higher traffic. Course, this story isn't exactly common. It's barely even a niche genre. It's practically a special order.**

**But till next week, faithful readers.**

**And a shout out to Jett Wolfe-98. She got name dropped by Scott Westerfeld himself.**


	15. Chapter 15

**Chapter 15**

**Return to the Breach**

**A/N: I'm still getting some traffic for this story, so I'll bring this to head. No I will not be updating How'd you Know. It is not a one-shot collection, just a one-shot. I know how hard that is for people, but it's true. I will write and release another one-shot eventually, but it will be an Artemis Fowl one-shot. Sorry for the interlude, just wanted to say that.**

**And last week I said that I don't get a lot of reviews. While this is true in theory, I think it created a misconception among readers. It's not a lack of reader empathy that leads to low numbers, but a lack of readers period that does this. To be brutally honest, I estimate that around 15 people read the story _at best. _I don't mean to flame anyone, it's just like I said: "This is a special delivery story." Not a big audience.**

**On with the show.**

Dylan opened one eye experimentally, than the other when he was sure no one was looking. He was greeted with the sight of a ceiling with an ornate wooden pattern, almost in the grain of it, and the continuous scratching of pen on parchment. Tilting the head of Jaspert Sharp, Dylan Sharp began to look around.

The walls had the same wood woven pattern in them, so he was in a Darwinian ship. Several desks were occupied by jars of leech's and medical tape. A few men lay around him, some unconscious by the slow rise and fall of their chests, others that couldn't be bothered with by the lack of slow rises and falls of their chests. These all taken together, Dylan concluded he was in the medical bay of the Leviathan, surround by the men of the Minotaur. The scratching of pen and paper stopped.

"Well Mister Sharp, it's a pleasure to see that you are among the living again. Your _cousin _would have been heart-broken if you passed away after being found in the wreckage." Dylan propped himself up on Jaspert's arms, and saw that the speaker was the striking Dr. Barlow. She smiled and stood, stepped over the men, and started taking his pulse. "You'll be alright in a few minutes, when our doctor returns. He's currently preoccupied with our ship, but will return soon. Can you feel this?" Barlow took a small hammer and rapped it against Jasperts knee. Dylan twitched, and Jasperts leg kicked forward.

"Yes, I do feel that." Dylan sighed, almost content. Even a few minutes of sensation trumped the hours of incorporeal floating in the ether. But he had a job to do. Dylan twisted Jasperts arm, and planted his curled fist into Dr. Barlow's face. The women collapsed, unconscious like Dylan had been moments before. Dylan rubbed his hand, then stood all the way.

The medical bay was typical Darwinian fashion. A mixture of medical tools and biological agents riddled the desks, along with several sharp knives. Dylan took one and slipped it into his pocket, then picked up Barlow. He decided to place her back on her chair, so if anyone entered, they would think she had just dozed off. Dropping her into her chair, Dylan stepped back and weighed the consequences of his next step.

He could just fight through the men of the Leviathan and Minotaur, but that would put him far behind. Instead he could slip out quietly and track down Deryn, using her sisterly trust to trick her and kill her. Slipping carefully out of the medical bay, Dylan turned left and started for the ladders to the spine. If he was going to find Deryn anywhere, that would be where.

…

Alek moved back onto the starboard engine for the first time in days. The night sky hinted at sunrise in under an hour, but was otherwise black as pitch. The engine had been idling unattended for several hours to keep it warm, so Alek only needed to take the saunter in hand and wait for the signal.

Bauer and Klopp scrambled out of the tube behind him. They had been ordered to the starboard engine, and would be working with him. But that didn't mean they were happy with being woken up at 3 in the morning.

"Only the Germans would be dastardly enough to attack us when we're all supposed to be asleep. How'd they think we'd take that?" Bauer said as one of the German planes fell past them. "They'd better be ready to reap the rewards for that."

"Exactly. That why we're awake at 3. They need a lesson taught to them." Klopp's bad leg obviously was still troubling him. Alek wasn't sure that it would ever heal properly, but that was beside the point. He had a ship to pilot.

The patch of skin next to the engine pod turned blue, the signal for quarter power. Alek pushed the saunter forward, engaging the numerous gears and the engine in total. The Leviathan began a slow turn west, bringing them parallel with the Kahn. Alek watched as the enormous German airship pushed by through the air. Suddenly, black flocks swarmed around it, and the Kahn drifted back past them, descending on torn gasbags. The men scrambled to the bow, trying to slow their fall. Then, with a yell, one hurled himself over the railing and onto the Leviathan.

Alek braced himself against the engine sidewall as the German soldier crashed into the membrane. His whoop of triumph turned to a shout of fear as, having planted his feet into the side of the enormous flying whale and not his hands, he began to fall. His body tilted back, arms flailing for purchase in the air. His body then disconnected entirely from the Leviathan, and after a prolonged silence, it crashed into the engine pod. The gears gave a shriek and the whole motor shut down. Alek starred at the body for a long moment, and then turned back to the saunter. He had killed a man once, but that was one too many times for him to be faced with death.

The other German soldiers on the Kahn hadn't gotten that particular memo though. A collection of fighters had all lined up on the railing, and a few now gripped the edge experimentally. Alek shared on horrified look with Bauer. They really were going to jump.

"_Nicht springen, nicht direkt. Ihr Freund ist tot!"_ Klopp cupped his hands and yelled the warning across the gap. A moment later, Alek and Bauer had joined in, lending their youthful voices to Klopps failing one. The Clanker soldiers leaned over the rails, a few just catching themselves after trying to jump. Several looked to the still body of their comrade, waiting for him to move and confirm that they should jump. Finally the Kahn floated past, the soldiers watching the engine mournfully. A few took off their helmets.

Bauer shifted the body as Alek ripped the covering of the engine. Several gears had come loose and hit others, stripping them. All hopes of restarting the engine before the fight ended was tossed aside. Even if they had had a full kit of spares and weren't in the middle of heated battle, the engine was simply too damaged to run.

Bauer leaned against the small wall of the engine pod. "Is that it? We're just going to sit here and wait for the Germans to flee or the Darwinians to crash?" Alek couldn't think of anything else they could do, besides get inside. The German carrier was still launching wave upon wave of planes, and the Herkules was only slightly way laid. The Leviathan was crippled, and nothing they could do would change that fact. Alek had never been more depressed.

For a minute, silence was the only thing that answered Bauer. Their thoughts occupied them. Klopp worried for his prince, who he had spent months fighting for. Bauer wondered if he would ever escape the life he had set out to leave when he left his parents' home. Alek wondered about the men on the ship, and the people in Austria, and all the Clanker nations, which, for one fleeting second, he could have saved, if only he hadn't been so selfish, and thought of Dylan.

A green blur materialized out of the corner of Alek's eye. Alek craned his neck, Bauer and Klopp turning to see what had interested him. A missile-like shape was approaching the engine pod. Green flames covered latticework wings. The Endeavor was approaching the Leviathan.

The strange ship slowed, it's wings turning more nearly blue, then a shape detached itself from the side. Jules fell only a short distance, surviving the drop that had taken the life of the unfortunate German. He stood quickly, and smiled nonchalantly at Alek. "What I miss, your highness?"

Not for the first time, Alek was seized by the urge to throw away all pretense and give Jules a good shake, and make him make sense for once. Calming jumping from a moving plane in the middle of a war was not something you just do. Surprisingly, it was Bauer who did it.

"Who. Are. You?" Hans Bauer bit each word off menacingly. "I have been told that fairies are on this ship and you just happen to be around at the same time. The Germans attack and you reappear. Who are you?" Bauer looked murderous, possibly because his precious engine had been damaged. Jules just raised his hands defensively. Alek looked from Jules to Bauer. He wanted answers as much as his friend, but he knew that Jules wouldn't give them. He was polite to a fault, and as smart as the next guy, but he was as cryptic as god. They wouldn't be getting a clear answer from him.

Just then the entire Leviathan shook. Alek looked up to see a blue star blooming above them, rushing to engulf the Leviathan. The Gesamt, Kahn and Herkules were ascending with them. Jules nodded once, and settled down onto the engine. "A chance… just one chance, please God, I only need one chance to send the traveler. Please, for my children. For me," Jules murmured, only Alek hearing him. He had pegged Jules as a Darwinian, but it was refreshing to see one that still believed in a higher power.

The blue storm enveloped the Leviathan and, for the first time, Alek saw the inside of the breach. The world was shrouded in a blue storm. Cobalt comets streaked past the ships, some close enough to touch. The Clanker and Darwinist ships were silent, save for the roar of the tunnel. Alek realized that if he wasn't seeing this with company, he could have considered himself insane. Countless ships and crafts of all designs swooped past. Alek watched be die and live, people at war and peace. It was astounding.

Jules leaned over the edge of the engine pod, waiting for something. Alek wanted to question him here and now, but decided against it. Artemis had given him the condensed version, how Dylan had gotten through the tunnel, and he had found him and how the whole thing apparently had something to do with a sheet of paper and a pair of pixies named Opal Koboi. When he had described them, Alek had immediately thought of Verne, but put it out of his head. If she was a megalomaniac pixie, she would have killed them all. And she would be shorter, too.

Jules watched the cosmic blurs, than pointed to one. Alek leaned over with him. A particularly bright comet was streaking through the tunnel, ancient symbols wreathing it like the headlamp of the orient express. This, Alek decided, contained the Opal Koboi's. Alek was second from commenting, when a long shout came over them. The four men occupying the nonfunctioning engine pod looked up to see two others descending from the spine. As they shot past the pod, Alek recognized one out from the pair. Jaspert Sharp was dragging someone in a red and tarnished suit into the tunnel.

"You have to do something!" Alek shouted at Jules. Jules flicked his hands, but nothing happened. He shook them again, and a pair of what looked like wings blossomed out of his back before fading. Alek stared as Jules sworn. A second yell echoed over the flank, and Alek looked up. It was Dylan, falling after his brother. Jules roared in terror, and jumped after him. Alek didn't dare follow him.

But he did hope. He hoped for Jaspert, for the boy that was falling with him, and for Dylan. He also hoped that he'd survive the Leviathan crashing

...

Deryn was still in a Huxley ascender when the Clankers attacked. She had decided to stay below and tend to some of the wounded while Jaspert was taken to the Leviathan. But Jules had assured her that he was alright, and while Deryn wasn't particularly in agreement with that line of reasoning, she had trusted him. Now she was regretting that decision.

"Of all the things that could wrong, and now my Huxley has a barking leak. Oi, you daft beastie, take me up already." But the Jellyfish amalgam she hung from was content to hover approximately one thousand feet above the ground, and ten feet from the bottom of the Leviathan's hanger bay. Two crewmen were trying to coax the ascender up without using anything sharp. It wasn't working. Well, Deryn thought, there's always plan B.

Plan B was scramble over the Huxley and free climb the rope to the two men, corporal Peters and coxswain Gareth, which were above her. Getting over the Huxley and onto the rope was easy. Climbing it was a piece of cake. And the corporal and coxswain grabbed her by the arms and pulled her up before she needed to even ask. But the real problem was when she left the room. She nearly collided head on with Artemis.

"Oi, watch it bumrag." Deryn glared at Artemis, but was a little surprised when she did get a good look at him. Artemis's normally clean and orderly suit was torn and dirty and unbuttoned. His hair was tasseled and streaked with the same red dust that was on his shirt and pants. His blue and hazel eyes were alight with excitement though.

"I was going up to the spine to observe N`1. He's going to be conversing with the Leviathan. I'm not currently needed in the infirmary, so I deemed it more productive to learn. Would you care to join me?" Artemis said this in the matter of fact tone that one would if they were discussing organic muffins. Deryn pulled herself to her feet, than helped up Artemis. She had no orders to the contrary, so she might as well.

The two started down the hall, but they were stopped again in twenty paces. A confrontation was occurring. On one side, toward the two, stood the man Alek had said was called Vlad. On the other were Theo Black and the boffin Bergheim. Theo had his hand behind his back, but Vlad was pointing an air pistol at them. Vlad was speaking.

"You thought you could hide your gift from the world, didn't you. You're rewriting the rules of everything we know and are now trying to flee. You and your little assistant aren't going anywhere." Vlad held the pistol in both hands, keeping it still. Deryn drew out her rigging knife.

Theo whipped his arm out from behind him. "_Lumosolem_" A soundless explosion of light filled the corridor, but it didn't drown out the series of bangs that came from Vlad pulling the trigger. Deryn felt the entire Leviathan shake, then heard shouts from in front of her, followed by a cry and a prolonged "_No." _Silence came as swift as a blow. Deryn opened her eyes, having unknowingly covered them with her hand. The hallway was empty, but the windows were smashed, illuminated by the blue glow of the tunnel.

Artemis looked outward, slightly disoriented if his expression was anything to go off of. But Deryn had heard of him in control of far crazier situations. He shared one look with her, then started towards the bow ladders.

The spine of the Leviathan swept around them, seeming to go on forever. The storm clouds and shapes went farther. Deryn watched a capital class freighter cruise by in the opposite direction. A ship of the line passed high above them. Standing with other people, the images didn't make her think she was going crazy. But there was one image she would have rather not seen.

"Holly!" Artemis broke into a flat footed run, but Deryn outstripped him. The diminutive elf was slumped into a hollow in the Leviathans skin, the last of the magical sparks winking out. Artemis's voice stirred her, and she sat up groggily, struggling to breath. Deryn reached around her back, steadying her comrade in arms, and started to pull the auto-armor off. Artemis came to a stop panting, the thirty meter run having really taken it out of him, and kneeled in front of her. "Are you alright Holly? Is anything broken?"

"I'm … fine … Artemis." Holly answered slowly. Then, without warning, she leaned forward and kissed him. Artemis locked up, and then leaned into the kiss. Deryn couldn't know this, but Artemis was definitely enjoying this kiss better than the one he had gotten from Verne. A slow clap could be heard over the roar of the wind.

"Well, what a touching reunion… who are these people Deryn?" Deryn whirled at the sound of her brother voice. Jaspert was moving slowly towards the three. "Well, I can't say that this honestly surprises me. My own sister, fraternizing with an Elf and a fugitive. Tsk, tsk Deryn, didn't our mother teach us anything about staring." Jaspert looked at Deryn expectantly, as though she would try and justify it. She tried.

"Well, we were looking for her and she only just became conscious and -", Deryn stopped, then looked at her brother. "How did you know she was an elf?"

Jaspert face palmed. "I should have just done this first." He pin wheeled his arm, a flash of silver appearing from his sleeve. There was a dull _thunk_, and Deryn and Artemis looked down at Holly to see the grip of a knife firmly embedded in her chest. Then she slowly reeled back.

With a roar, Artemis slammed into Jaspert, carrying him off his feet. The soldier and genius hurtled down the flank of the Leviathan, vanishing from Deryn's sight as her mind spun madly. Her brother, Artemis, Holly, _Jaspert_. How did this all happen. It couldn't be possible. She had gone mad in the tunnel, it was the only explanation. She had to be dreaming, she was dreaming, she was dreaming, she was dreaming, she was-.

'_Get a_ _grip' _some unsleeping soldiering part of her mind yelled at her. '_Remember what father taught you, that everything has a reason, that just ten seconds of observation can save your life.' _Deryn staggered back to the reality, or as much any existed here. Artemis and Jaspert were gone, N`1 was up front, she didn't know where Alek was, Holly was digging the knife out of her - Holly!

Holly Short had sat back up and was trying remove the knife in her ribs. The knife came out with a wet schlock, and blood poured from it before it eased up under the assault of blue sparks. She was breathing heavily, but seemed alright, if out of it. But it only took one look at her to tell she wasn't going to be flying anytime soon. Which just left…

"Give me your wings." Deryn didn't ask, she told.

"What." Holly looked at her incredulously, then understood. She started tearing the wing pack off, and then handed it to Deryn. "Arms out to engage, up to fly. Steer by shifting your weight, dive by going straight.

Deryn nodded once, then turned and sprinted to the edge of the spine, jumping at the narrow point when dorsal turned to flank, and flying at full speed into the abyss.

…

It happened so fast, it happened so slow. It took years, it took minutes, it took days. No two persons record could be reliably compared, but some people knew what happened in the tunnel.

Deryn hurtled down through the blue void, weaving between azure clouds and sapphire rockets. The air was rent with the screams and shouts of frighten men and women. But she only focused on finding her brother.

There. A small dot in the distance expanded to show two boys locked in struggle. The pair seemed to be moving towards a particular comet, one that shown unnaturally bright. She could just make out some oblong shape, looking like a large person being carried by a fairy. _'Opal Koboi and Opal Koboi, I presume'._

Deryn entered a steep dive, but before she could even try to close the gap, Jaspert and Artemis spiraled off in different directions, one flailing into abyss, he other smashing straight into the comet. Artemis vanished into the blue mist as one of him half went deeper into the tunnel, while the other flipped through space. It took Deryn a moment to process this. Artemis had been split in two. What just happened?

"I'll get the boy," came a shout from behind her. Deryn looked back to see Jules, on wings of light, racing up to her. "You get Jaspert." He said this more than thought it, but the tunnel was pretty inconsistent, so Deryn didn't question it. She turned and fell after her brother.

_Fifty feet._

Deryn raced through the inky blueness, cloud shrouding her and Jaspert.

_Forty feet._

The clouds began to close in. A comet raced between them.

_Thirty feet._

They were in a tunnel of clouds. Lightening flashed, but thunder never came.

_Twenty feet._

Was that a glint of metal, and the flash of searing green light?

_Ten Feet._

Deryn was almost there. Almost there. Jaspert flipped over in the tunnel of clouds, hazel eyes reaching out to her. '_No'._

_Impact._

Deryn found herself standing in the middle of what looked like a field of gray clouds. Dylan stood on the other side of the gulf that separated them. "You could never let me live, could you?" Dylan tilted his head sympathetically. "I'm always the villain here, aren't I? I only wanted to live, to breath, and you denied me that. Could you have done any less?"

"You kidnapped my brother," Deryn countered. Dylan looked unfazed, but then she had only ever seen him angry or dead. It was a weird look on his face. Dylan held up a hand, and then suddenly, it ignited. Deryn gasped at the fire on his hand, which he seemed to take in stride. Dylan gestured to the burning hand.

"Fear. Anger. Lust. I am an embodiment of your failings, and your shames. You try to see yourself as safe in your little world. But underneath the surface you are a maelstrom of emotions and pain. Your loss of our father, your love of Alek, your terror of fire. Everything you have never wanted is not just in me," Dylan slammed his flaming fist into his chest, his eyes shining. "It is _me_. I am you, through the twisted mirror. And I tried so hard to break that mirror, to be free of everything you were, to learn from you."

Tears were running down his face now, but his tone didn't change. "I have tried to be what you wanted, want you could never have. But all I had was your faults, and none of your redemption. I wanted to live, but I was stopped by the mere memory of you. I only wanted to live."

Deryn looked at him, then said, "Your out of your barking tree. You haven't tried to be me better. You just did whatever you wanted. You're not redeeming yourself, you're just mad. You didn't learn from me, you bloody kidnapped me!" Deryn really hadn't seen someone so blatantly crazy before, and that was saying something. Dylan seemed to at a loss for a moment, and then looked at her.

"Can you blame me? Besides, all of this won't matter in a minute, because I'm going to kill you." Dylan and the field of clouds broke down, then reformed. Deryn was falling through the tunnel again. Dylan loomed over her, hand still alight, while Jaspert tumbled helplessly beneath them. "So poetic, that one should die in fire. Perhaps I'll see you again, and then kill you with ice. Robert frost would be pleased."

Deryn wasn't listening. Something had just fallen past her, on her left. Jaspert reached out and plucked it from the air. It was Artemis's sword.

With one, desperate heave, Jaspert threw it to Deryn. Time seemed to freeze as Deryn wrapped her hand around the wrist of the arm that half-made the sword. Then she drove it into Dylan's chest.

Dylan looked at the blade in his chest for several seconds, incredulous. "I thought dying would hurt more." Then he took one straight look at Deryn and screamed. "God damn it."

Then he slammed his flaming palm into Deryn's face.

Deryn watched as the whole world dissolved. Her father was looking down on her, the flaming wreck of the balloon basket framing his distraught features. He held one burning hand down to his daughter.

'_Deryn'._

Deryn reached up and seized the hand. She was dead now, died in the ballooning accident with her father.

"_Deryn."_

It was all insane, really. How could she have met a prince in the middle of a war? How could she have pretended to be a boy in the air-force? How could she have ended up in a different universe with fairies? It was all a dream.

"Deryn."

She was gone, and nothing could change that. She had burned to death in the balloon accident. She had never fallen to earth, had never been found by Roger. She had passed away with her father, and now she was getting her heavenly reward.

"DERYN!"

Her father took her by the wrist, and on wings of light, they ascended.

**A/N: Oh, spooky. Tune in next week folks for the exciting conclusion of… what happened to Artemis when he was cut in two. Yep, I'm not going to tell you whether or not Deryn was dead, you're just going to have to figure it out yourselves.**

**Chao.**


	16. Chapter 16

**Chapter 16**

**Snapshots of another life**

**A/N: Yep, I'm making you wait to find out if Deryn hallucinated everything or died in the tunnel or what. I'm evil that way people. And does anyone think I'm past the climax? I don't want the pacing to be all screwy.**

**Otherwise Lets go.**

Artemis was only slightly aware of the fact that Holly had magic, and as such would heal from the knife wound in her chest. However, the rest of him was acting uncharacteristically impulsive. And with the women he had just kissed had been injured, the oldest of all male instincts kicked in; _Protect women, kill attacker. _Had Artemis ever thought that over, he would have fainted from embarrassment. But as mentioned, he was too busy being angry and throwing the offender, a man he recognized from his stint in the infirmary as a Minotaur crewmen named Jaspert, overboard.

Unfortunately, this was about the time that Artemis did start thinking again, and suddenly realized that trying to kill someone by throwing them into a temporal hole wasn't exactly an ideal way to end their life. But he was committed to that plan when, trying to stop himself, he tripped over his feet. _"Left foot Fowl seems to just become a far more appropriate term every day."_

It seemed Orion hadn't abandoned him yet. "Is the real reason your still here just to annoy me? It would seem that is all you do."

"_Artemis, I am only a projection of your guilt. I'm out of touch with reality, so I don't have to acclimate myself to the rules of society like you do."_

"Really, because you seem to enjoy speaking so much. Perhaps you should shut up."

Orion's recourse was lost to the ages when Jaspert suddenly let go. As he spun away Artemis couldn't believe his good luck. Then he remembered what people said about his luck, and immediately began to wonder what the fates had planned for him.

This question was answered a second later when he slammed into one of the many comets that passed through the tunnel. As Artemis spiraled off to the left, he casually watched Opal Koboi the elder and Opal Koboi the younger rocket in opposite directions from each other. It was as he watched the older descend off to the right that he noticed that he lacked a right half. Artemis had been cleanly cut in half, straight down the middle. Oddly, the expected excruciating pain did not materialize a weird tingling and numb sensation replacing it.

Artemis tried to acknowledge this fact. When he did, panic overtook him (as most people would panic at the sight of themselves sliced in two), and he searched desperately for the other half of himself. The sword that Orion had found swung dangerously in his slacks, and then tore off completely, abandoning him. Tracing its trajectory, Artemis spotted a blue blur not too distant from him. The blur twitched, and a grotesque image greeted Artemis - half his face turned to look at him. The image eyed its counterpart, and then smirked with half it face. This Artemis assumed, was Orion.

With a jolt, Artemis realized that, yes; this was Orion, as he could no longer sense the presence of the rogue personality in his head. Orion had left the metaphorical building, no thanks to the Cumulus house. Before Artemis's eyes (or rather; eye) the being expanded, and became whole. The weird tingling/numb feeling abated, and Artemis deduced that he was whole as well.

A blur of wings filled the air around Orion, and Jules appeared, rapping his arms around the mad boy. He dug into his pocket and cocked an arm back. His limb wind milled, and a red stone flew from his hand. Artemis vaguely recognized it as the rock that Jules had been holding when he had kidnapped him. It glowed in the same manner, and had the same aura of force that had initially led to him assuming it was important and making a desperate bid for it in the tunnel the first time.

This was what enabled movement between worlds.

Artemis watched as the sword spun away to be caught by Jules, and then tried to reach the stone. It spun tantalizingly above him, mocking him. It hovered mere inches above his grasp, but no matter how much he stretched, he couldn't grab it.

Artemis began to panic. The stone was his only way back to his world. He had to grab it. He needed to get home and make sure Holly was alright. He needed to assure his family he was back, and safe, and sane again. But it was out of his reach, he had to get it, he had to, he had to, he had to, he had to-

_'Stop!'_

'_Focus,' _said some iron-willed part of his mind. '_You need to think this through, you can think, your good at that. Just stand back, concentrate on the situation and observe. Ten second of observation can save your life.'_

Artemis looked up at the stone, then turned his gaze inward, taking stock of his mental capacities, his planning skills, his memories, all to find the answer to the question of how to survive this. Everything had an answer. And there, buried beneath all his thoughts and dreams, it was. Magic was the way out.

Artemis focused on the tunnel around him, taking the strange electric blue substance into him. The magic that flowed through the tunnel came unwillingly, but it came. It began to flow into him, coating his body with power, soaking his neural pathways with it. It reached deeper, starting to reach into him on a cellular level. Artemis started to resist, for as the magic flowed in, bits and pieces of him began to flow right back out. It only crossed his mind then that there may be some price to pay for this magic.

The toll hit him right then and there. He knew what the magic wanted. In exchange for power, it would take his memories, his very essence.

'_No, anything, please, anything but that. My memories make me who I am, I need them. Please no!'_

But Artemis was fighting a losing battle, and the only thing he could do was try to hold on the anything and everything he could.

'_My name is Artemis Fowl the second, I live in Ireland, north of Dublin, within Fowl manor. I am a genius, and have made contact with the People, a collection of fairy races that live beneath the earth's crust. I am a millionaire, and have a bodyguard named… Butler._ _My name is Artemis Fowl, I live in Ireland, within Fowl manor. I am a genius, and have made contact with… a collection of fairy races that live beneath the earth's crust. I have a bodyguard. My name is Artemis Fowl, I live in Ireland. I am a genius, and have made contact with… with… something.'_

'_My name is Artemis Fowl, I am Irish. My name is Artemis Fowl, I am Irish. My name is Artemis Fowl I am Irish. My name is Artemis Fowl. My name is Artemis Fowl. My name is Artemis Fowl. My name is Artemis. My name is Artemis. My name is Artemis. Artemis. Artemis. Artemis._

_Artemis._

* * *

><p>Artemis was falling. That in and of itself was a surprise, as he had never <em>not <em>been falling. It was a strange feeling, not knowing what it was like to not fall. Artemis was briefly puzzled at the fact that that sentence just didn't seem right, when he became reacquainted with the ground. And pain.

Artemis passed out in a field, and his magic kicked in.

When Artemis came to, he was greeted with a rather awkward sight. Three young women, the youngest looking to be around his age, the eldest roughly eighteen, surrounded him with their arms crossed. The awkwardness wasn't really due to the fact they surrounded him, but rather that he wasn't quite sure that they were girls. He couldn't quite remember the definition for the fairer sex and thus could not devine whether or not they were, in fact, women.

'_But apparently I can still remember the words. Strange.'_ Artemis looked up at the youngest. She was standing almost directly over him. She was wearing an astonishingly dull white skirt and corset, which was otherwise livened up by the mud streaked in it. Her eyes, a shockingly abnormal gold color, matched quite nicely with the gold hair that cascaded down from her head. She looked like she was wearing contact lenses, but Artemis couldn't remember what a contact lens was, so he dismissed the thought. The eldest girl then spoke.

"So you decide to just waltz right onto our property, mister. Well you've got another thing coming." The eldest girl had what Artemis assumed was a scottish accent. Said speaking girl also hefted a clod of mud, which she seemed to have had the whole time, threateningly. "You want to leave now?"

Artemis cocked an eyebrow. He had no idea what she was going to do with the mud, but decided the diplomatic civilized way that people acted in government would be best. "If I'm reelected…"

He got no farther, as the three girls smashed the mud onto him and ran away, giggling. Artemis sat up, and wiped some of the mud off of his face. "What did I do?" But lacking an answer and any background knowledge, Artemis started after them, just as something fell out of his pocket. He reached down to get it, and saw it was a big red rock. It didn't look valuable, but Artemis decided that introspection was less of a concern then just walking, and pocketed the possibly valuable gem. Strangely unable to move at anything faster than a weak gait, Artemis eventually consoled himself that he would not catch the girls.

He was maybe halfway across the field where he had landed when a loud shout echoed over the turf. Artemis turned his gave up from his shoes, which he had been finding fascinating, and saw a large, barrel-chested man holding onto the leash of a… Artemis didn't know what it was called, but decided that he didn't want to find out. He turned on his heel, took two running steps, forgot about his weak walking speed, and then collapsed face first into the mud. A few seconds of lying there was enough to convince Artemis he wasn't an athlete, whatever that was. And that the warm, wet thing that pressed into his back probably wasn't some water pressed into a towel to cool him off from his run.

"Get up boy. You got a lot of explaining to do, so you better get started." The man nudged Artemis with his foot. Artemis wisely chose to remain still and limp. The man nudged him some more and then said; "I think he fainted."

"Of course he did father, with you come running down the fields trying to scare every boy that looks at us funny." Artemis recognized the voice of the older girl from before. She spoke teasingly, fully confirming that the man really was her father. A soft hand suddenly grasped his shoulder and turned him over. Artemis didn't time to close his eyes, and was greeted with a full on view of the young blond from before.

"He's not faint, he's just lying here playing dead. See father, his eyes are opened." The girl cocked her head, and then stood up to let her sisters and father get a better look. Artemis raised his arms, unsure of what he could do, and of whether or not he would be fed to the leashed beast that looked like a cross between a dog and a spider with two snouts. He said the first thing that came to mind.

"I don't know who I am." Artemis watched the man continue to look at him quizzically, and then the man burst out laughing. Artemis wasn't sure of what was so funny about retrograde amnesia, but then again, maybe he would have found it funny if he knew what retrograde amnesia was.

The father's laughter died down, and then he looked back at Artemis, before starting to laugh again. His daughters next to him, one with red hair and another with black hair, started to giggle along with him. But the blond one was staring at Artemis with a face that started out as amusement, morphed into confusion, and then finally ended in shock. She turned to her father and said; "I don't think he's joking."

The father's jolly manner vanished in an instant. He looked at his daughter sternly and then back at Artemis. He had a calculating look to him, something that Artemis felt odd admiration for. He finally picked up Artemis by the shoulders, and arms still there looked him straight in the eye. "Do you really not remember who you are?" His eyes burrowed into Artemis's. Artemis nodded curtly, waiting for the man's judgment. Finally, he turned to his second black-headed daughter. "Send for the doctor. Tell him we have a strange case that needs treating immediately."

The girl scurried off, and the father turned back to Artemis, sympathy mellowing out his hard features. "I'm Jasper, local farmer and father. These are my stepdaughters, Margaret and Jenifer. Margaret's the blond, Jenny's the red head. The black haired girl you saw was mine, Catherine. Do you know your name?" He gave Artemis the penetrating look again that was obviously meant to intimidate and make people squirm with fear. Artemis felt like laughing instead.

"My name is Artemis. It's nice to meet you, Jasper" Artemis watched Jasper take him in. He was a big man, with black hair and brown eyes. Artemis didn't quite understand why, but for a moment he was vaguely reminded of room service. But he did feel safer with this man then, say, with his daughters. Which did beg the question, why had they poured mud on him? Mr. Jasper seemed to think the same thing.

"Why are you covered in mud? Did you get into some sort of fight?" Artemis shook his head and shot a glare at Jenny. Jasper followed that glance, and looked appraisingly at his children. "Well, well, well, aren't you two just the regular pair of guards. You two are going to have a good long talk with your mother about lady-like conduct." Both girls looked fuax-ashamed at what they had done, which only made Artemis wonder why they had done it in the first place.

Jasper tossed his hand over his shoulder, indicating the direction behind him. "Let's get you indoors, alright. This Scottish weather must be killing you?

* * *

><p>Artemis Something-something reclined in the chair in the doctor's room. He had been going to these checkups on a regular basis, twice every week for two months now. The first checkup had failed to find anything wrong with his head, with no bleeding or ruptures. Neither had the second checkup, or the third, nor did any of the ones that followed yielded any results. Failing to find any physical damage, the doctor had resorted to find the obvious psychological damage Artemis had suffered. His primary method today was a recent breakthrough in psychology called Rorschach cards.<p>

He held one up for Artemis to see. Artemis took one look at it and said, "I see a continent." The doctor wrote something down while Jenny said "I see the coast of Italy."

Margeret and her sisters had insisted that they see at least one of his psych tests, so they had to be quiet when and before Artemis was answering. But after…

"A dragon." "Sheep." "Death." "Cannonball." "A vase."

"I think it looks like two people to me," Margaret spoke for the first time. She was usually silent during the psych meetings, but did interject every now and again.

"I think it looks like you and Artemis about to kiss." Jennifer teased.

Margaret went a deep shade of red and countered. "I think it looks like you about to kiss Bertie." Bertie was the family draft dog, a cross between a spider and canine. When Artemis had arrived, he had been suitably surprised to learn that such crossbreeds weren't just common, but integral to the life styles of every person in the so called Darwinian nations. They had far more uses then Artemis could have expected, but some of their attempts were just slightly crazy. Who would need or want, say, a flying whale. But the boffins (mad scientist's that weren't so mad after all) had set their sights on them, and were crafting larger and larger creatures on a daily basis.

Of course, some people had decided that such practices were unholy (Artemis not among them), and were actively resisting such changes. Their answers were two legged, steam driven walkers. Artemis couldn't quite wrap his head around why these would be any better than flying whale, but anytime he tried to point out that treads would obviously be better, he was laughed at. It was maddening.

But beggars couldn't be choosers, and Artemis had begged his way into Margaret's home. As the psychiatrist started to pack his cards away, a message lizard informed the waiting children that Mary had come to take them back home. Artemis marched studiously out of the room and into the receptionist alcove, while Jenny and Margaret play-fought their way out. Mary sat in one of the chairs, and waved to her daughters.

Mary's life prior to marrying Jasper had been, to put it mildly, complicated. Artemis had the courtesy to not ask about it, but the varying appearances and hair colors of her three daughters provided an ample hint. But Artemis had put the thought out of his head, as Mary was simply too kind to think such thoughts of her. And she and her husband had offered him homestead while he tried to remember who he was. Artemis had the vague suspicion that they really wanted him to marry one of their daughters to keep them from ending up like Mary had.

In any case, Artemis had long figured that if he did manage to get a job outside of agriculture, it would have to be in manufacturing. The empire of great Britain had a severe shortage of people that could draw and translate the blueprints of fabrications and machines, and Artemis would have loads of work to do if he got into that line. And thus, loads of cash. He was already planning for this when he had come to the evaluation today.

Artemis looked at Margaret, arguing with Jenny that she didn't want to kiss Artemis, and then turned to the door and stepped out into the cold Glaswegian day.

* * *

><p>Artemis waited as the butler monkey finally got to his table, and plucked the two teacups from the tray it held over its head. He gave the primate a little pat on the head, and turned to give Margaret the other tea. Margeret took it happily, and sipped it for a few minutes. The side walk café was bustling with activity as men discussed the newest fabrications, women talked about the newest fashions, and children talked about their newest drawings. Artemis eyed the ten year old kid that said he would grow up to be a soldier, before his father told him, "Gregory Hirst, you sit down this instant."<p>

"Arty?"

Artemis's perked up at the sound of his pet name, and then turned to Margaret. Nearly three years after having been found in her family's field with no knowledge of whom he was and two years after he had gotten a high paying job as mechanic and schematics artist, he had only now worked up the courage to ask the youngest member of the family out. He had been planning this outing for two weeks, but had only yesterday spoken to her.

But it seemed like everything was worth it. The summer day was sunny and warm, the wind had picked up quite nicely, and the smell was tolerable. A mammothine stomped past, and a living airship was floating high above them. It was a picturesque day in Glasgow, and Artemis wouldn't have had it any other way.

"How has work been? Have you heard anything about the new fabrications?" Margaret wasn't as good an artist as he was, but Artemis didn't' begrudge her that.

"I can't quite say, as it's a military secret. But I can tell what I've guessed," Artemis added hurriedly as Margaret's face fell. "The boffins are obviously aiming for something big this time around. Not something like the Zeus which will fall apart when they send it up. Something that I know will work something I'm sure of." Artemis watched her chew this over, mildly entranced by how her features slowly changed as she moved from one thought to the next.

Finally she aimed a cheeky smile at him, and asked, "So sure that you've taken a bet on?" Artemis tried not to laugh at how true this was, and mock glared at her instead. She took his initiative and started giggling. Artemis finally gave in, smiled at her, and joined in.

* * *

><p>Artemis pulled Margaret into the snow-covered field. Margaret followed bemusedly, unsure of where she was, as Artemis had blindfolded her. Artemis slowly maneuvered her into a section that was sitting at the western end of the opening. Finally satisfied that he was in the right position, he smiled and told her; "You can take your blind fold off now."<p>

Margaret pulled the blind off and looked around. Artemis's smile grew fractionally as she recognized where she was. "This is where we found you, what was it? Five years ago."

"Four years, eight months and seventeen days." Artemis supplied. Margaret cocked her head, as was her habit when he surprised her, then mirrored his smile. Artemis swept his gaze over the many trees that grew at this end of the property. He had moved out of Margaret's home long ago, and eventually moved out of the rented house to a more permanent one. Margaret and her sisters frequented his home, and so did their father Jasper and mother Mary, when she had the strength.

Artemis finally turned back to Margaret. Her golden locks swept over her cheeks and down over her dress. Artemis had never met anyone that had matched her beauty. Artemis was the sort of man who prepared plans and backup plans for his breakfast, but here he was flying free (he refused to say flying by the seat of his pants, as this brought garden gnomes to mind). Because, right here and right now, Artemis had one chance to get this right.

"Do you remember when you first found me?" Margaret's mischievous smile popped up.

"Didn't we splatter you with mud?"

"Well yes, but it's the thought that counts." Artemis chuckled at the memory. The wind picked up then, blowing a little snow over their feet. Artemis kicked off the powdery flakes, and then got onto one knee. Margaret looked down on him, cocking her head, before putting her hand over her month to stem the gasp of realization. Artemis drew a little black box from his pocket, opened it. A little golden ring rested on white silk. "Margaret, will you marry me?"

Margaret looked at Artemis, then back at the box. To Artemis's horror, her smile faltered. "I, I don't know what to say Artemis." That was worse.

"Yes, you could say yes. Please say yes." Artemis's voice went up an octave, and if the situation hadn't been so important, he would have been indignant. But his relief came when Margaret looked back up at him, smiling wider than ever before.

"As if I would say anything other than yes, Arty. Yes, you can marry me." She stooped and picked the ring out from the box. Artemis watched her examine it, and his heart leapt in joy. She was going to marry him. He was going to be married!

* * *

><p>"And I now pronounce you husband and wife." Artemis turned and kissed his bride. Margaret returned the favor, and the happily wedded couple started into the crowd. Margaret's father pounded him on the back. Margaret's mother smiled up from her wheel chair. Jenny and Catherine wept unabashedly from the pews. Margaret's friend swarmed her, wishing her well. Artemis's coworkers and friends moved through the crowd, trying to shake his hand or get the first dance in with Margaret. The fervor carried over to the reception, where butler monkeys and swaneques where threatened my trampling if they did not skillfully navigate the throngs.<p>

"Congratulations, nice to see I'll not be the only one in the office with a wife anymore." One coworker said. Another, more bashful coworker, declared, "Pretty bloody smart to marry on the shortest day of the year. Means you got the longest night too."

The men guffawed at the innuendo, while the women tittered and pretended to be occupied with something else, including Jenny and Catherine, to Artemis's surprise. It seemed that being faced with the marriage of their youngest sibling had engaged their 'proper womanly instincts' as Mary, Artemis's mother-in-law, would have said. Artemis wrapped his arms around his wife. Tomboy or girly girl, he wouldn't have her any other way. She was his. He was hers.

* * *

><p>Artemis sprinted through the rain. Of all days for the English weather to rear its ugly head, it had to be the one that his first child would be born. Artemis wasn't a particularly good runner, but now he made record time to his house. Joshua, his neighbor, was standing outside. He opened his mouth to speak, but Artemis breezed past. The house should have held several people, either well-wishers or doctors. Nether were present. The house was empty.<p>

Artemis tried to control his nervous shaking, and stepped outside. Joshua just pointed down the road, and Artemis sprinted again, this time to the nearest Hospital. He was almost too late to.

As Artemis streaked in, the receptionist seemed to recognize his demeanor and said, "The only birthing we have is in the east wing. And she was getting real close to." Artemis, for the third time that day, broke into a sprint, and tried to find his wife. He was hoping for a girl. He had bet on it.

Artemis would actually lose this bet, as when he burst into the room that contained his wife, he was only slight saddened to see a small bundle in her arms. He had missed the birth of his first child completely. Margaret looked up and smiled at him. Artemis reached forward for the bundle. A tuft of black hair covered the boys head. Artemis barely remained standing, joy taking it out of him.

He was a father. He had a son.

* * *

><p>Margaret sobbed into Artemis's shoulder. The news had just come about their mother. Jasper was waiting for a clear day to hold the funeral. Artemis quietly rocked his wife. "It's alright. It'll be alright. Artemis repeated this as a mantra. It was all he could think to say. It didn't even work for him.<p>

From on the mantel piece, the red rock glowed and flickered inertly, seemingly having done nothing. It mocked him.

* * *

><p>Artemis cradled the bundle in his arms. His newborn daughter, blond like her mother, slept fitfully while her older brother had crawled into the chair next to Artemis, also asleep. Margaret snoozed herself, quietly content to let Artemis hold his child. Artemis mused over names, and finally picked one. He had chosen to name his son after Margaret's father. But now Artemis wanted to try something else.<p>

His first choice had been a little rash. He had assumed that he would have a son again, and so he had selected the name Fowler. He had always liked that name for some reason, but had decided against naming his first son that. And now he had to scrap that name because the child in his arms happened to lack a Y-chromosome.

But Fowler, or at least Fowl, did mean bird, and Artemis did know a feminine, gaelic, name that meant bird as well. Artemis quietly christened his sleeping daughter this name, and then leaned back in his chair and fell asleep. This was irresponsible on so many levels, but Artemis knew he could keep his daughter safe while asleep.

* * *

><p>"Look daddy, look at all the clouds." Artemis's daughter pointed below them, at the clouds that swept past. She pointed at some that looked like puppies, some that looked like spiders, and some that looked like spider puppies. Artemis reached up and pulled the release cable, letting cooler air swamp in the hot air balloon's, er, balloon. Artemis had taken up ballooning as a hobby years ago, a little while before his son was born. He didn't know why, but he loved the feel of the air. Maybe it was because, when he strained himself, the earliest memory he had was one of falling.<p>

And apparently his daughter and son loved it too. They would always fight each other for the chance to ride with their father in the balloons. They loved it like that. And he loved them for it. His daughter was six, his son was seven, and his wife and he were both twenty eight. And their lives were happy ones.

* * *

><p>The air was rent with screams and fire. Artemis reached blindly, groping for his daughter. He found her form suddenly and screamed in victory and terror and hurled with all his might. And then she was gone, falling from the basket. The fire roared and the basket pitched and Artemis watched, almost detachedly now that she was gone, as his arms were consumed in fire.<p>

Artemis really hadn't had a moments warning when the kerosene tanks exploded and showered his arms with flaming gas. His only thoughts had been to grab his daughter and throw her as far away from the blazing wreck of the hot air balloon as possible. Smoke rose from the basket in spirals. Then, out of nowhere, he connected with her. He only had one chance, and wrapped his arms around her and heaved with all his might. Then the ropes snapped.

Artemis fell on his back, the scourging fire above him not reaching his yet. Artemis was afforded an odd sight. While the left tank had ruptured, the right was intact, and bloated. Artemis realized that it was about to explode. He needed to get down.

The hot air balloon slowly climbed higher and higher. On instinct, Artemis reached into his pocket, and removed the red stone. He carried it with him everywhere, mostly for comfort, a little for safety. It flickered in the fire. Artemis did the only thing he could.

"Take me home."

And Artemis vanished in a flurry of blue sparks, seconds before the last tank exploded.

* * *

><p>Artemis drifted through space, only vaguely aware of what looked like a fight between two floating people. The people began to vanish, though at the last second, one looked at him. This fighter was wearing a trefoil hat and a red buccaneers coat with black pants. He was a little older then Artemis, but also much younger. Artemis began to register that he felt much younger, when, with a jolt, images assaulted him.<p>

Father, mother, Butler, fairies, wars, revolution, technology, power, gold, pixies, elves, love. Everything blurred together and tried to be recognized simultaneously. Artemis gripped his head in excruciating pain, and fell.

He landed on what seemed like firm earth, which on further inspection with his hands turned out to be just that. Artemis tried to sit up, Déjà vu creeping over him, noteing that the sky was a deep shade of red. He put a hand to his throbbing head, only to immediately remove and examine it. It was slightly smaller and much less callused, with a few years of wear and tear missing from it. Running his hands over his body, he confirmed his fears. He was much younger now.

Artemis stood, and then fell back onto the ground. Whatever had happened had left him very weak. Artemis tried to remember how he had gotten there, only to have numerous other memories intruded. Artemis took a long breath, and then let it out and tried again. He had been on fire. He had been with his daughter. He had been falling. He had been- Artemis froze mid-thought, then backed up a little. He had been with his daughter. He had a family.

Artemis rose, and decided that the memories recall could be put off for another time. But the names didn't stay down so easily. And one stood out. Artemis ponderd it for a few moments. _Julius._

He had to get back. And come hell or high water, he would succeed.

**A/N: Viola, the first all Artemis chapter. Thanks to stopthattimerave for being my Beta. You know, I could just end it here, but I won't. Because I care about you, and your entertainment.**


	17. Chapter 17

**Chapter 17**

"**Everything has a reason."**

**A/N: So this is the third to last chapter, and I'll be wrapping up the technical stuff. All the character explanations will be in chapter 18, and maybe some Bauliet. But till then, you'll have to settle for knowing how some of the stuff works. But don't skip this chapter. Jules and Verne are explained. You can know who they are.**

**And go to my profile to vote on your favorite OC. Jules, Verne, Dylan. Hurry!**

"Deryn, turn your wing rig back on, please. The three of you are pretty heavy."

Deryn snapped out of her 'I'm dead' revelry. Jules was speaking to her, telling her to… wing rig, right. Don't think about it, just do it. Deryn snapped her arms out, dropping off of the clinging grasp that Jules had held her in and descending gracefully towards the foggy ground of the wilderness. From her vantage point, she could just make out the rings of fairy shuttles spattered across the ground, along with the hulks of the _Herkules_, _Gesamt_, and _Leviathan_.

Deryn rubbed her eyes to make sure she wasn't seeing things. Nope, the ground was very foggy. She could barely make out any good landing zones, even from her height. But there looked to be a clearing almost directly beneath her and her party, so she aimed for it.

The air crawled past her, the wings beat behind her, and for the first time, Deryn realized that she, right now, was truly flying. No gravity to pull her down, no airship to tow her along. She was in heaven. Deryn tilted into a dive, then pulled up above the tree tops. She curved over the ground and circled the landing zone she had selected. She straightened and touched down gracefully, landing on her toes. The air… She just didn't want to leave it.

Jules, with both Artemis and Jaspert clinging to him, landed far less smoothly, kicking up a large amount of mud. Jaspert detached himself from the pair, and ran to assure himself his little sister was alright. Artemis sent a weird look at Jules, before sticking out his hand. Jules took it and gave it a firm shake. This, more than anything, confirmed that they were very close acquaintances. Deryn had never heard of Artemis having offered to shake someone's hand.

Jaspert was quick to enter _brotherly protection mode. _"You alright, do you have all extremities _Dylan_? Are you dizzy, feeling nauseous? Don't have anything out of place?" Deryn tried not to laugh at Jaspert. This was the sort of thing that he _hadn't_ fretted over when she was going to enter the air-force. Now he sounded down right terrified.

"All digits accounted for, everything in the right places, stomachs are stable." Deryn counted off on her finger's then paused and put her hand to her side. "No, wait… yep, that's my spine in order. How about you?" She looked at her brother, who nodded once, then doubled over and promptly ejected the contents of the last meal of the _Minotaur_ onto her boots.

"Well, now that that's out of the way," she continued, trying to simultaneously kick the vomit off her shoes and ignore it entirely, "let's get back to civilization."

Getting back to civilization was easier done then said, to butcher an old proverb. Deryn, Jules, Jaspert and Artemis only had to move in any direction and they would inevitably meet the fairies. They were all lost in their thoughts for the moment though, so no one really talked.

Deryn took in the wreckage around her. She would do a drawing of this later, and maybe of the fairies to. The _Leviathan_ floated in the air, tethered loosely. Even obscured by the fog, Deryn could still tell that the first and third gondolas were hanging loosely. The fourth had fared worse than those, and was supported lopsidedly by numerous improvised ropes and pulleys.

The _Herkules_ and _Gesamt_ were mostly intact, with any damage having been suffered by the tunnel and landing. That said, it wasn't too long before Deryn and the rest encountered something not even Jules had expect; the burned out husk of the _Kahn. _The gasbag was terribly limp and weak, the perfect example of why Hydrogen was such a darn big tradeoff when it came to war. A few burned out trees hung off the ribs that had once supported the skin, or at least that was what Deryn though until she saw a strangely knobby end to one, and realized that they were scorched skeletons. Deryn took a deep breath to steady herself, and felt a gloved hand press into her shoulder.

"You can do this Deryn, just trust yourself." The hand was then gone. Deryn started the slow tramp around the wreck, pushing the occasional charred corpse out of the way, Jaspert making good time behind her, Artemis trying to analyze the bodies while walking, and Jules bringing up the rear, contemplative.

As they finally cleared the _Kahn_, Jaspert perked up, then pointed skyward with an exclamation. Deryn looked up, and was nearly flattened by the Holly shaped UFO landing two feet in front of her. The Elf captain straightened, her visor breaking up and folding into her helmet in a way that Deryn always found amazing.

"Dylan, it's good to see some of the men on that ship have brains." Holly glared at, respectively, the man who stabbed her, the man that nearly killed himself to kill the aforementioned stabber, and someone that obviously had suicidal tendencies after trying to attack. Bet you can guess who these people are.

"Well-," Deryn began, but Jules cut her off.

"Can I just have my ship back, please? I just completed something I've devoted three years of my life to, so I just want to settle down on a nice piece of beach property and live with my future wife. " Jules smiled at Holly, who smirked back at him. The smile died first.

"No, you cannot have your ship back Jules_, _if that is _really_ your name, because we have some questions for you back in Haven." Jules hung his head, for a moment anyway.

"Is Foaly feeding you those lines, Holly? Because I have some very juicy gossip about you and Artemis. I have Orion as my witness to." A hologram popped out of Holly's helmet, a vaguely horse like face projected out of it. Jaspert jumped in shock, but Deryn took it in stride, as well as she could.

"Okay kid, what's my tell? We have everything reassembled from the survivors and the only X-factor is you. So you got a _lot_ of explaining to do. And what this about Gossip?" Foaly looked half way between anger and interest, and looked ready to get justifications for both.

Jules raised his hand in defiance, but _Orion _had taken issue to something. "I'm not Orion. If I was that emotional nincompoop, then I would have made numerous attempts at romanticizing Holly after she, ka blur blurb." Artemis/Orion stopped talking when Holly slapped her hand over his mouth, adding a glare that seemed to say '_if you even _dare_ tell Foaly I will rip your manhood off with my bare hands.' _

"Anyway," Artemis pushed Holly's hand down. "How are you so sure that I'm Orion. Orion and I were separated in the tunnel, and you took his egregiously long knife, which I refuse to call a sword, and gave it to me." Artemis held up the bladed hand, and Deryn noticed, for the first time, that an ornate serpent was engraved on the knife. Weird.

"I was assuming that, well, I thought I… I was so sure-", Jules looked Artemis over and sighed, apparently exhausted. Deryn was starting to wonder about that. When she had come through the portal the first time, she had been beat. Now she only felt as if she had run a few dozen yards. This, she determined, was her body getting used to the constant transitions.

The group, now led by Holly, moved towards a particularly wide clearing that looked to be filled with some sort of amorphous blob. Deryn and Jaspert had barely just emerged when roars erupted from said blob, and Deryn feared for her life, wondering what had come out of the tunnel. It took her a moment to realize that said blob was actually a crowd of men, cheering. "Hey everyone, its Dylan." "Middy Sharps back." "Jasperts there too." "Where've you two _been_?" "Yeah, I get my money." The crowd advanced, and Deryn found herself and her brother being pounded on the back, having their hands grasped, and being hugged by the numerous men of the _Minotaur_ and _Leviathan_.

Deryn eventually forced her way out of the mob, and cam e face to face with Alek. Alek gave her a look, then smiled and hugged her around the middle. "It's good to see you again, Dylan." That, right there, annoyed Deryn more than any crowd of men could have. She was _still _pretending to be a boy, _still_ pretending to be her brother's cousin, _still_ having not told Alek that she was a girl. It was barking annoying.

But Alek would go hysterical if she told him now, so silence would… oh who was she kidding, she'd just tell him. Deryn opened her mouth, intent on beginning, when Jules swept over them and grabbed Alek by the arm, dragging him away. _'Well, you can't fault his timing' _Deryn fumed. Jules whispered some well-chosen word into Alek's ear, and was almost to his point, when the door to the shuttle behind him opened.

Verne stepped out, her shawl askew, and two well-armed guard elves standing to her side. Two very well-armed guard elves standing to her side. Jules ran forward and threw his arms around her, but menacingly looks from the elves convinced him to loosen up. Finally, he turned to the crowd and said; "Perhaps we should continue this indoors."

…

Jules collapsed into the chair in the shuttle, not for the first time thankful for the fact he had come accustomed to a Spartan lifestyle. Butler, Juliet, Angeline, Artemis, Holly, Verne, Deryn, Alek, and Jaspert also stood in, with Trouble Kelp, Foaly and N`1 on holoscreens. Jules would be trending a fine line, keeping something's to himself and revealing others. It would be difficult, but he could manage it.

"Introductions are in order then. The boy, excuse me, young man, is Jaspert Domique Sharp. He served as a coxswain upon the _Minotaur_, until its untimely demise. His more recent history involves being as close to possessed as one can get. And yes, you _were_ possessed," Jules pointed out to the slightly confused Jaspert. "Dylan, a facsimile of Jasperts brother, took control of your mind. Can you recall any urges to attack Captain Short here, Jaspert?" Jules waited for Jaspert to nod his head cautiously, then continued. "Jaspert was under the allusion that his brother was in harm's way from Holly, a very direct form of the _Mesmer_, its effects compounded by the Presence of Dylan in his own mind."

Foaly raised a hand. "How could the _Mesmer_ be used on a human? They don't have a drop of magic in their veins."

Jules looked apprehensive for a moment, and Verne took the chance to rib him. He should a mock glare at the diminutive women and faced back to Foaly. "It's a long story, but I'll get to it. Now, Dylan here-"

"If I may interject," Butler said. Jules smiled at the giant of a man, and nodded. "But are you really going to keep up the show of Dylan's masculinity? Him sharing a name with someone will obviously get confusing."

Jules looked at Deryn, silently enjoying her gob-smackedness. "How the _bark_ did you know?" She looked at everyone present, and finally Alek cleared his throat apprehensively. She glared hard at the boy she loved (though wouldn't admit it at the moment) and opened her mouth to scream. Before she could, he said;

"Volger told me."

Deryn was visibly fighting the urge to attack the absent count, and Jules used this to continue. "Deryn here has dropped however unceremoniously into the tunnel, and the shock of entry, coupled with residual magic present in her mind, _which I will get to later," _Jules said at Foaly's opened his mouth, "And the lingering emotional trauma of witnessing her father die, resulted in a separate, dissociative personality that took it upon itself to become the literal manifestation of everything she ever wanted, e.g. male, strong, had Alek as a lover, that sort of thing."

"After he took control, her body fell into a pseudo-limbo, where I, Artemis and Verne found it. It seemed to be, in bib hib." Jules turned his faux glare at Verne again, as she had slapped her hand over his mouth. "It seemed to be intact. We repaired our ship, the _Endeavor_, and returned to our reality. We arrived just in time to, ere, stop some rather crude events from transpiring." That was just an easy way of saying that they had interrupted Dylan's attempt to rape Alek, which might not have even classified as rape, as Alek did, to an extent love Deryn, and thought that Dylan had been Deryn.

"We were then attacked by the _Herkules_ for the first time, as it had then exited the tunnel. The rest is mostly history, but in the aftermath Jaspert was attacked by Dylan, who had been separated from his body by Deryn's consciousness exiting his and entering hers." Jules frowned at the innuendo, and resumed. "His consciousness was apparently connected to the tunnel. He was able to take control of Jaspert's body, then after being found by crewmen from the _Leviathan_, was taken aboard. Am I correct to assume that Holly here has filled you in on the details of the events immediately following?" The group nodded.

"Deryn followed Jaspert and Artemis into the tunnel, eventually tracking him down and stabbing him with this sword." Jules pointed to Artemis's sword, which immediately drew the eyes of everyone present. Jules smiled quietly, content in the knowledge that he only had to answer questions now.

"What exactly was Dylan anyway? He sounds like a quantum zombie." This question was leveled from N`1, and it wasn't an unreasonable question either. And it would act as a nice way for him to get the pair of guards away from Verne.

"Dylan was a separate personality, who formed in the tunnel and used it's warped laws of physics to create a body for himself. So, yes, he is a quantum zombie. It you shouldn't call them that."

"We take offense," Chimed in Verne. The guards growled at her, and everyone turned to look at her, safe Artemis, who was presently enamored with some writing on the blade of the sword. "Yes, I'm a quantum zombie. Bet you can't guess of who I am?" At this, the incredulous looks turned to glares, as everyone knew who she was now. But Artemis still asked, and Verne answered.

"Opal Koboi." Verne smirked at the shocked looks from Artemis and Deryn, and the confused one from Jaspert. The poor soldier looked like he had entered the mad house, at least from Jules perspective. "Though I prefer Topaz as a name, at any rate." Verne smiled at the confused group, while Foaly and Artemis tried to factor in how this was possible, and Commander Kelp tried to figure out how this would be seen by the counsel. As Verne started to unwrapped the perpetually present scarf, Jules adjusted his hat.

Artemis had set the bladed hand aside and was now staring intently at Jules, who was studiously ignoring him. But such things cannot be ignored indefinitely, or the act would stall up. Jules finally meet Artemis's eyes with his lone uncovered one. "What?"

"Who are you, really? You've given us the background of everyone present, yet you yourself remain innocuous." Artemis continued to stare intently at the inter-dimensional man of mystery, who finally rolled his eyes.

"Guess, I know you can." Everyone, save Butler who had guessed the identity of Jules, waited with baited breath for Artemis's grand declaration. The genius in question smiled.

"You are me. Or rather, Orion, who fell separate of me in the tunnel, and collected that stone, while I received a mildly useless sword." To illustrate his point, Artemis hefted the steel arm.

"True, but a stone such as this is rather useful." Jules pulled out said stone, cheekily dodging the question of whether or not he was Orion, even though he was. "A philosophers stone is very useful, especially compared to a sword." N`1 and Foaly's eyebrows had seen better days, but now they seemed to have developed a love of heights.

"You can't be serious. Philosopher's stones disappeared with the ancient magicks. Only Demon warlocks could craft them , and even then it took thousands of man-hours just to get the equations right. The last stone disappeared nearly four hundred years ago." N`1 looked rather offended at the thought.

"Curious thing, that," Jules said, as Artemis leaned in closer to learn more of the strange gold making stone. "This stone happens to be the one that was stolen. I purchased it from a girl who claimed to be the daughter of the thief. She was completely delusional; of course, seemed convinced she was only half fairy. She did stand out in a crowd though." All assembled briefly pondered how they could pick such girl from a crowd, but some were determined to get their answers.

"So, are you Orion? Artemis leaned in closer, and studied Jules. The man, for the second time since Artemis had met him, really did look thirty three. Wordlessly, he nodded. Artemis clapped his hands together, and Angeline screamed in delight and hugged the slightly older version of her son. "I've always wanted to hold a conversation with someone of near equal intelligence. It really is a pleasure to meet you, which it is, as you obviously think that you are not that-"

"Romantic buffoon," Jules supplied, trying reluctantly to dislodge his biological mother. "It would love to, but I have important issues to address, such as my girlfriend being incarcerated." Jules finally succeeded on prying Angeline loose and glanced at Foaly, who looked more exasperated then anything.

"Well, we would like to haul Miss Koboi here in front of the tribunal, but there's the legal problem of she not being the only Opal Koboi we've found." Foaly hit several keys on the old fashioned key boards he enjoyed so much, and brought up to screens showing both Opal the elder and Koboi the younger in separate padded cells. Neither seemed particularly happy with their current situations, with Opal beating against the camera, and Koboi trying to summon lightning and blast her way out. "Three Opals are our problem; with one we need to send back, one we need to convict and one we need to do something with."

"And we can't just let anyone go," Trouble stated morosely. "While she may be technically innocent, I can not allow her to leave on my watch." Trouble then leaned back, threw his hands over his head and kicked up his feet on his desk, just in time for the screen to go black. Both guards looked at each other and collapsed theatrically. Jules looked at Foaly and N`1, who had not been facing the screens and were now arguing vehemently about dimensional equations.

"Well, if you don't need us anymore, we shall be on our way." Jules stood up, and as no one objected, started for the door. But no one can run from their own consciousness, and Jules certainly couldn't run from the arm on his shoulder. It seemed Verne wasn't ready to let him leave without explaining everything. "Please no," was all he could say as she dragged him back to the chair and pushed him into it. The assembled crowd leaned in intently, curiosity ignited by the actions of the Opal Koboi look-alike.

Jules started to remove the hat and eye patch that he wore. Underneath them were - surprisingly – a full head of raven hair and two very functional navy eyes. Jules looked at the collection of people, mostly human, and tried to get the words out. After a few false starts, he began.

"When I first fell through the tunnel, I traded my memories for magic. I could steer through the tunnel and exit at will, but forgot almost every part of my life. My family, the Butler's, the Fairies, everything vanished into the ether. I ended up landing, in of all places, Darwinist Scotland. There a family of farmers took me in. They raised me kindly, and I eventually married their youngest daughter. We had a small family, and were supposed to live happily ever after. We didn't."

"In the tunnel, I came into contact with a philosopher's stone, but while I could not use it at the moment, it came with me. In Scotland, I had been ballooning with my daughter when one of the kerosene tanks ruptured, spilling burning fuel on my arms." Jules raised one scarred arm, and then lowered it. "I saved my daughter, and resigned myself to death. But at the last minute, I remembered the stone. Using it and my magic, which I hadn't used since the tunnel, I opened a portal and sent myself back into the tunnel. Here I regained my memories, and with fifteen years of maturity under my belt, I kept both them and my magic. Close thing though."

"I exited in a different universe, where man has apparently been absent for centuries. I honed my magic there for two months, and then reentered the tunnel. While, no matter how hard I tried, I could not reenter either of my universes, I could travel across the multiverse, working my way closer. I had eventually realized that I was an assistant to _the traveler, _the being that restored my memories, or rather, I. Though I did not realize that the person was, in fact, my future self at the time, I did know that I had somehow managed to retrieve a philosopher's stone and get it to myself."

"As chance should have it, I encountered a young girl that held such stone. After some, ere, lengthy conversations, I persuaded her to give me the stone, in exchange for transport out of the universe we were currently in."

"Artemis Fowl the second, you did _not _abandon a little girl in an alternate universe." Angeline growled. Jules had the state of mind to look indignant.

"She was perfectly happy with this universe, mother. Anyway, by this time, Topaz-" Verne waved, "- had joined me, and we were making our way across the multiverse. We eventually worked out a way to directly enter a tunnel rift, such as the one which we have been using to such an extent recently. We had only just passed out of the one which is currently hanging over the Leviathan when we got the news of Deryn's unfortunate disappearance. And you know the rest."

Jules glared defiantly at Verne, who twiddled her thumbs. Artemis looked at the man that was, quite literally, himself. Butler had moved to protect both boys, intent on the protection of his principles. Juliet was looking from Artemis to Jules, trying to see the resemblance. Holly was trying to think of a way to wrap her arms around Artemis and kiss him for simply being intact without being caught by N`1 or Foaly. Alek was silently praying that Deryn did not exit the shuttle soon, as she would kill him when she realized that he wasn't the only person to have figured out her little secret. Jaspert was thinking about the odd time traveler, and Deryn was lost in thought about his story.

Angeline, the ever vigilant mother, was spending the prolonged silence in another way. She was quietly comparing Jaspert Sharp to both her Timmy – Artemis the first – and to Artemis himself. The bearing, the hair, the eyes – Angeline barely contained her gasp when it all clicked. Jules looked at his mother semi-appraisingly, knowing that his greatest secret was about to be revealed, and fearing the reaction.

The reaction to the heritage of Jaspert and Deryn Sharp.

Angeline was staring at her son, and the people in the room were staring at her. She tried to gesture to Jules then back at Jaspert. Jules waited for them to figure it out.

Deryn quietly mulled over the story, and wondered why Misses Fowl was acting so strange. She looked at Jules, and was hit with the near constant effect of déjà vu. He wasn't much. Tall, but on the skinny side, with black hair, blue eyes that seemed prominent from his pale face. Deryn had started mentally drawing him, But when she looked away, all she could think of was her brother. Why did he remind her of her brother… _oh._

Deryn's head snapped back to Jules. The man fidgeted, trying to not look her in the face. Slowly, so as not to break the illusion, Deryn started to him, and put her hands on his face, bringing him to face her. Their sapphire eyes met in silent understanding. Jules looked up at the face of his daughter, and a lone tear descended from his blue eyes.

Artemis Orion Julius Sharp, nee Fowl, wrapped his arms around Deryn, hoping for the resolution that he needed the knowledge that she and her brother did not hate them for abandoning them. Jaspert looked at him, stock still. Then he too came forward and embraced his father.

Deryn and Jaspert Sharp had their father back. Jules had his children. For now, that was enough.

**A/N: So yeah, a lot of you figured this out last chapter, but Deryn and Jaspert didn't. Still, pretty darn cool about what I did, right? And again; go to my profile and vote on your favorite OC.**

**Please Vote.**

**And the next chapter will be going up on Tuesday at the latest. Plus a credits scene.**

**B/N: Yeaaah, I'm having just as strong a reaction as you are. And aww, they're together again. Yay! :3**

**Well, until next the chappie, my darlings! **


	18. Chapter 18

**Chapter 18**

**Epilogue**

**A/N: Well, on the eleventh of November, 2011 (11/11/11, like I planned it), I posted the first three episodes of this story and started working towards this final chapter. I could only hope that I managed to finish this before I got bored, and yet it has set me up to write even more.**

**Planning five more stories and a sweet picture (someday), I give you, ladies and gentlemen, though mostly ladies, the final chapter in the first story of the Of Oceans And Eye's tetralogy, theeeeeeeee epilogue!**

**Happy reading! ;-)**

Artemis meandered through the crowded hallway. Fairies and soldiers bumped elbows, most intent on their assigned tasks, few paying the young man any heed. Artemis had wondered how being split into two halves in the tunnel would affect his psyche, and now found that he had no want for the attention that would have doubtlessly been directed his way had anyone knew what part he had played in the directing of their plight.

Here and there, men would sometimes stop to stare at the diminutive fairies, some in rapture that they were surrounded by creatures that had only ever existed in myth and tale. But most would soon return to work, deciding that they could simply work away the oddities of trans-dimensional movement. And, like them, Artemis focused on the task ahead of him – Holly. It had seemed that she had been avoiding him since he had returned, a full three days after she and the rest had left the tunnel. Artemis knew that she couldn't avoid him forever, and was going to talk to her, whether or not she would consent.

Holly herself turned out to be on the spine of the _Leviathan_, out in open air. Artemis scrambled out of the ladder alcove, and took a moment to admire her from behind. She was sitting back, casual in posture, seemingly at rest. She still had her wing pack on, giving the impression of angelic qualities. Artemis couldn't look away, really. She was beautiful.

He _had_ been a fool not to realize it before. Holly might have been an elf, she might have worked for an organization whose stated goal it was to keep people like him from finding her, but she had found her way into his arms, and since then, they had fought both against and for one another, slowly inching closer and closer towards the other, and now they could only get closer. Artemis wasn't working off of a set template, but he was certain he could avoid the common pitfalls of other relationships.

And so his path stood clear. And, looking back, it seemed that it was the only path, whatever the voices cried and moaned of Stockholm syndrome. Artemis had one choice. He quietly approached from behind, and started to speak.

They would talk long into the night.

* * *

><p>"So…did you build it yourself, or did you buy it?" Hans Bauer gestured at the enormous, humanoid walker that stood before him and the rather vivacious girl he had just met, Juliet. Juliet seemed to be choking on air at the moment, so Hans decided that neither assumption had been correct. The walker stared down at Hans, still as the grave. Hans could see many reasons why any person would want a personal walker, though why one had to be dressed in a suit and look like a man in his late forties was beyond him. He'd just chalked it up to women.<p>

"No, no, silly, this is my _brother_." Juliet gestured at the walker, which remained mostly impassive. Bauer looked from one to the other, and decided that she was crazy. But he _had_ just seen her flip Max Hoffman over her shoulder, so he was inclined to not bring it up. But then the walker did something that he had deemed impossible. It spoke.

"Juliet, if you must toy with the man, at least have the courtesy to not bring me into it. Please?" The man the Bauer had mistaken for a walker looked at his sister, who smiled and laughed openly this time. Hans was no less annoyed when her brother joined in.

"But brother, if we didn't have our fun, what would we do with ourselves?" Juliet said with a smile. "Besides, I don't trust anyone farther then I can throw them." Juliet then turned to smirk at Hans, who wasn't sure if it was a good thing she could throw Hoffman across the hallway. Wasn't he more trustworthy then him?

"And I wouldn't touch her without her parents' consent, and only after marriage," Bauer added quickly. Juliet's brother – Mister Butler – nodded once, the looked at his sister, whom was more disappointed than relieved. Not for the first time, Hans Bauer dreaded the future where women were free to have their way with men. Women needed a strong guiding hand in their lives, either a father or a husband. That was the best way, in his opinion. But Juliet was defiantly against the ways of the times, and Hans couldn't help but want to meet a woman like that.

"Well, when you put it like that…"

* * *

><p>Deryn opened the door to Alek's stateroom. The young prince was laying quietly on his bed, almost immobile, save for the steady rise and fall of his chest. Deryn, acting as cautiously as she could, closed the door and started over to the sleeping boy. She was halfway there when Alek spoke. "Did you come here to apologize?" Alek sat up, propping himself upon his elbows.<p>

Deryn tensed, and replied, "No, because I don't need to apologize to some dafty who couldn't figure out that their mate was a lass." Deryn walked over to the bed and sat on it. Alek twisted and sat next to her. "I came to ask you that how you figured out I was a girl."

Alek rubbed the back of his head unconsciously. "I guess I was coming around to it for a while, but I never expected that you really were a, er, lass. I only guessed after you fell through the tunnel."

Deryn looked at him, bemused. "Then you didn't read my letter. Thank God!" Deryn placed her face in her hands, relieved for a moment. Then she remembered something that she had heard from Jaspert. "You still found it. Why didn't you read it first thing?"

Alek fidgeted for a moment, and then spoke. "It was the only thing I had of yours. I didn't want that to change. I guess…I'm sorry." Alek gulped, waiting for Deryn to process this. The girl-dressed-as-a-boy looked pensive, then chuckled.

"Daft prince, _dummkopf_. You didn't read something because you missed me. You really do have a heart, don't you?" Deryn smiled at Alek, who smiled hesitantly back. But he didn't quite hide the sorrow and tears that danced behind his eyes and Deryn knew why he was heartbroken.

When Jules had told her that he was her father, that he was Artemis Sharp, she and Jaspert had been overjoyed, beyond happiness to be able to talk to their father once more. But as Alek had secluded himself in his room, something had clicked in Deryn's head. They were so terrifically different, an Austria duke and a Scottish farm-girl dressed like a boy, that he had cherished the only connection that they had had - that they had both lost parents, both met with terrible grief. And now that single link was severed forever.

Deryn reached over and took Alek's face and looked him in the eyes. "Alek, one way or the other, I am not the same person you found on a glacier in the middle of the night. We've both changed as we've flown across the sky. But through all of that, we've had one another. And whatever will happen, we have always had each other. I can be sure of it."

Alek stared back at her, and spoke quietly. _"Ich liebe dich, und ich denke ich immer zu haben. Ich wusste nicht, wie zu sagen."_

Deryn rolled her eyes. He really had to make it hard for her, didn't he? Now she had to rise to the occasion. _"Ich muss. __Ich habe gerade bekannt länger. Und versuchen Sie nicht, mich zu betrügen und mit deutschen, bitte. Ich habe die Gabe der Sprachen, von meinem Vater."_

And she leaned forward and they kissed. Love at first sight, especially if you thought that you were looking up at an angel after falling from the sky.

* * *

><p>Saulb Newkirk leaned on the door, listened through the cup and scowled. Of all the things that had to have happened, he had to have been proven wrong. Dylan Sharp just had to be a girl, didn't she? He took the cup, and handed it to the next guy. He had to go out, and track down ten pounds. A lot of money would be changing hands today; that was for sure.<p>

* * *

><p>Jules gripped the controls of the <em>Endeavor<em>. The _Leviathan_ swept away beneath him, its crew preparing for a massive mind wipe. The fairies had everything set, and once they were finished, the Leviathan's missing hours would go down in history as the singularly strangest event in all of world history. An entire crew's memory, all vanished in an instant. But no fairies in habited this world, so it could be done safely.

Artemis Orion Julius Sharp, nee Fowl, looked forward unto the horizon. Topaz Verne Koboi wrapped her arms around her soon to be lover. After a moment, he smiled. Things were really looking up.

* * *

><p>In the depths of a soul, something stirred. The being, less then alive, less than the meanest ghost, struggled to awareness. It had fallen through the tunnel, lost and fearful and praying for its One, but to have found a body and have been given a way back was a god-send. The lost soul slowly rose, and readied herself for reality. Anne-Beth was trapped, but now she needed to fight no longer.<p>

She had traversed the worlds, and swam the oceans of reality. She had been adrift in the waters of the universe. But now, she had a vessel to sail in.

* * *

><p><strong>A Mari Usque Ad Mare.<strong>

**Thanks for reading!**

**BN: Thanks for sticking with us, and good-bye, my loves! Until next we meet, may your life be sweet!~ :D And may writer's block never affect you!~**

**(I just made that up now…apologies for the sappiness. -.-")**

**Ooh, and here's a translation for Dalek's lines in German:**

**Alek: "I love you, and I think I always have. I did not know how to tell."**

**Deryn: "I have to. I've just known for some time. And do not try to deceive me with German, please. I have the gift of tongues, from my father."**

***quietly squees***

**-Rave**


	19. Credits

**Credits**

**A/N: Okay, so this chapter is pretty much raw exposition and explanation. It's not narratively relevant, but I want to put it in, so there. Think of it as my acknowledgments. Yeah, actually, let's go with that.**

**Acknowledgments**

I would first want to address the origin of this story. Pretty much everyone reading this is pretty aware of Ezqueza's story, Levi Af, which I really loved. In fact, I loved it so much that when I found out that it had been five months since the a chapter had been posted, I freaked out. A story as good as this should _not _be abandoned like that. I was in shock; almost unable to comprehend the fact it wasn't even done.

Then I got thinking. Yeah, big shock there. The story wasn't terrifically long, just shy of over 4500, and two chapters in total. If I just had the guts, and the daring, I could pull off a spectacular comeback. Same band, new manager, if you catch my drift. So I copied the first two chapters, and started typing.

About four weeks later, I finally worked up the nerve to leave a digital fingerprint and create a fanfiction page. Two days later, I had the first three chapters up, and had started working on chapter five.

Then the unthinkable happened. I read Goliath. And it changed everything.

OMG ARTEMIS SHARP AND ARTEMIS FOWL HAVE THE SAME FIRST NAME AND IM WRITING A CROSSOVER FANFICTION ABOUT ARTEMIS FOWL AND ARTEMIS SHARP'S DAUGHTER. HOLY MARY, MOTHER OF GOD r#$$!%#%^%#&^%$#^%$&#*^&(#^u.

So after devouring the book in the least literal sense, I started to wonder how I could integrate this into my story. And so the characters of Jules and Verne were born.

I originally intended them to be named, respectively, Gats (stag spelled backwards) and Topaz, for mythological and geological reasons, but decided against it. So instead, I took the name of my favorite Sci-Fi author, Jules Verne, and gave them their names.

* * *

><p>And note to Miss Jett Wolfe 98. I did not intend for the names to be similar to Julius Root and Raine Vinyaya. They are, terribly, dead. But really good deduction, silver star.<p>

* * *

><p>Later on, I tossed Bovril in so as to have mister Hohenberg to figure the bit of Deryn being a girl. Then, after that, I had another lightning strike idea. Deryn could hide out as a boy on the Leviathan. So what if she was a boy? The actual catalyst for this was Ezzy's <em><span>Dreams<span>_story, a smut story involving a male Deryn. Dylan was a cool name, so I tossed him in.

And so the cast of canon and original characters had been assembled. Now all I needed to do was try and figure out why they were there and put that in the narrative.

* * *

><p><span>Bios<span>

Jules was a repentant Artemis. When he received his memories again, he tried to reconcile who he was with the cynical, smart-aleck his memories deemed him to be. As such, he became a sort of saint, almost to the point of annoyance, always apologizing for the smallest transgressions. He was still smart, but less inclined to take the easy road if it interfered with his moral compass.

Verne is actually Topaz/Opal Koboi. After the incident in the dimensional tunnel, she ended up split off from her parent personality, and landed in a different universe. There, she too began to reconcile her past with who she was. However, after meeting Jules, she realized that she didn't need to completely reset herself to become a better person. Additionally, castaway syndrome interfered, and she formed a romantic bond with Jules, even though he was still technically married to Margaret Sharp.

Dylan was my favorite to write. He was originally created as the perfect foil for Deryn. Completely male, without the pyro-phobia or the daddy complex, he was free to live the life that Deryn couldn't have. However, after being exposed to the real world, he decided to put aside living Deryn's life for simply living. He isn't exactly hedonistic, but rather would want to experience everything, painful or pleasurable, that the world had to offer. He also developed a severe hatred of Deryn, as he also embodied what she disassociated with herself, such as her fear of fire, to the point of literally being fire. He's more than a metaphor of Deryn's negative traits, but less of a real person.

* * *

><p><span>Learning experience<span>

Writing for the Artemis universe was much less enjoyable then the Leviathan universe. I don't think I managed to write it as well as the other. But live and learn, as my mother would say.

Speaking of learning, I think I've pinned down why most crossovers are cheesy. Every single one tries to start like the connection between universes are either A) established and everyone knows one another, or B) it simply establishes them without pretext or character reaction. In this story, Deryn practically thought that she was going insane when she was in the tunnel, with this being accredited to Ezqueza.

It really ticks me off how they never establish everything, its mostly in medias res.

* * *

><p><span>Future stories<span>

I really don't have anything planned for more stories in the Leviathan universe anywhere in the near future. But I do have an Artemis Fowl one-shot that I need to write. So you can look forward to that.

And my next long story will be particularly interesting. How many people have ever heard of Code Lyoko?

* * *

><p><span>Thanks<span>

My Acknowledgements are baked and ready. Let's try some!

To Ezqueza, for writing such a kick ass story that you made me want to write the rest.

To Stopthattimerave, for being my faithful beta through and through, even when forces beyond our control intervened.

To all my reviewers, for taking the time to hit that little blue button and compose a few words on my piece.

To all the writers that wrote such great stories that I just had to add in some elements of theirs.

To Jett Wolfe 98, for being my first sub, my first review, and for really caring for my story.

And to both Eion Colfer and Scott Westerfeld, for the absolute coolest series I have ever read. And if you want to make Artemis Fowl/Sharp Canon, Pleaseeeeeeeeee.

And to me, because I am cool.

* * *

><p><span>Suggestions<span>

Just stories to take you time off while I write my next one;

_The Dead, the Broken and the Living__; _If you can stomach the return of evil Arty, and just a hint of Opal self-slash, this story will suck you in. It's both emotionally charged and draining at the same time, something that few stories can really claim. 9/10.

_Half the perfect world; _Another tear jerker, this story comes off with the idea to toss Artemis and co. into a completely different scenario. They have to come up with a whole new collection of identities. While it was a little to fluffy for my taste at sometimes, it never failed to suck me in. 8/10

_Artemis Fowl and the Book of Ages; _A slightly more traditional tale, Artemis and Holly are thrust into an alternate dimension where humans and fairies are at war. This is rooted in some real facts and is pretty clever. There were times when I genuinely wondered if this person was really Eion Colfer. 10/10

_What happens next? Goliath; _You really have to hand it to miss Sarasponda, her writing is _good._ It's a great of alternate historical drama, and it involves Deryn and Alek sleeping together (not sexually anyway), and Alek still not realizing that she is a female. For shear quality, 9/10

_Strawberry fields forever; _In this tale, Holly's mother, Coral short, meets Alek and Deryn. It's short and ever so slightly fluffy, but really really good. 8/10

_How'd you know? _Shameless self-promote much? Yeah, but it's pretty good, I think. And it is totally original, with the whole crew taking bets. 8/10

* * *

><p><span>Last words<span>

I write for the sake of writing. I love the slow creep of thought onto paper, the quiet roar of the masses as I create new material and release it. I just do.

* * *

><p><span>Cliff<span>

And two more things, just before I really wrap this up. Yes, everyone on the Leviathan now knows that Deryn is a girl. And yes, Anna-Beth will appear in my next story. You're welcome.

**Thanks for all the fish.**

**I mean reviews. Good night everybody.**


	20. Post Credits Scene

There was a roar of thunder and the boy hit the ground in the rain.

He hoisted himself up onto his elbows, shaking his blond hair to dislodge any loose moisture. This proved fruitless as the area he had landed in was raining. He staggered to his feet, his boots clopping on the black stone. He stumbled for a moment, completely exhausted, then tried to take his bearings. He was further disoriented when he found himself surrounded by dozens of similar houses, all of a design that he was unfamiliar with. People dotted the area, but that was as far as he got when a loud horn blared behind the boy.

The boy whirled, just in time for something red and cubic and on wheels to screech past him. The thing came to a halt, and the man inside leaned out and shouted abuse at the boy. But the boy did not understand any of it. He scrambled to get of the strangely smooth road, and tried again to define where he was.

The boy looked over the road and the sidewalk. Several more of the weird cubes where on the sides, but the boy could not see a single walker or fab. The storming sky could have easily concealed airships and Huxley's, the twisting road hiding walkers. The boy attempted the first thing that came to mind. He shouted.

"Help, help, I don't know where I am." He repeated this line a few times, but only got a few passersby to look at him funny. He seized one and took her by the shoulders. "I need to know where I am. Am I in a Darwinist city?" The boy shook the women, but she only looked frightened. Several people had stopped, and on had put his hand threateningly into his pocket. The boy resorted to shouting louder.

"What day is it? What year? Where am I? What's happening on the war front? _What is happening in the great war?_" The women cringed and the boy brought his hand out to slap her. The man drew his hand out and pointed something vaguely akin to a gun. The boy turned and ran.

People flashed by, the boy catching snatches of their conversations… _"Comment est votre journée?" … "Qu'est-ce que maman?"… "Est-Xana aucun danger aujourd'hui?"… "Aimez-vous ce café?"… "Est-ce la pluie va laisser place?"… _but none of it made any sense! The boy clapped his hands over his ears as the wind roared around him.

The boy charged out of the road and out onto a truss bridge. The boy skidded to a halt, throwing up a shower of water drops in his wake. A factory loomed before him, the faded words _Renault _declaring its owner. The boy stared at the factory, and then started screaming.

The boy seized his head in confusion, then fell to his knees. Dylan Sharp threw back his head and stretched his hands heavenward, and roared a desperate plea to all of existence.

"_Where am I?"_


End file.
